Thunderbolts: Next Best Thing
by Jim Smith
Summary: Based on Thunderbolts #27-30. After a quarrel with Psylocke, Archangel joins the Thunderbolts. Now Marvel's Most Wanted find themselves hunted by one of Warren Worthington's deadliest foes...
1. And on That Day They Shall Call it...A P...

The avenging ARCHANGEL! The shadowy PSYLOCKE! Marvel's most wanted, THE THUNDERBOLTS! And Natasha Romanov, the BLACK WIDOW! All together for the first time in...  
  
NEXT BEST THING  
The fanfic YOU didn't demand, because you had no idea how good it could be!  
by Jim Smith  
  
Chapter 1! "And on That Day They Shall Call it...A Prelude!"  
  
  
***  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics, and no profit is being made from this unauthorized usage of them. Copyright of me, baby. Feedback encouraged, and paid for on occasion.  
  
This story will be archived on the Thunderbolts Fan Fiction Archive , but if you want it too, just email me at .  
  
Continuity Alert: This installment of the story takes place after UNCANNY X-MEN #368, which I didn't bother to read, and prior to the events of THUNDERBOLTS #27, which was pretty cool.  
  
***  
  
Psylocke could feel him, pushing and throbbing inside of her, rattling her soul until she would relent under the tension. But relent she would not. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, and with a little extra willpower she resisted his advances one more day. She sighed with exhausted contentment.  
  
Archangel, on the other hand, was rather dismayed. "Betsy? You all right?" he asked. A somewhat pointless question, but there wasn't much else he could do.  
  
"I'm fine, Warren," she muttered in a regal, aristocratic accent. She was sitting up in the bed, holding her head in her hands. "Just a headache. I'll be fine."   
  
Elisabeth Braddock could have been worse, but she certainly wasn't fine. Not since an old foe, Amahl Farouk, made his presence felt in Kenya. As the Shadow King, would-be master of the astral plane, Farouk had given her and her fellow X-Men nothing but grief for years, and she prided herself on bringing that to an end with some unorthodox tactics. The Shadow King's soul was imprisoned within her, contained totally by the telepathic power she'd used as a longstanding member of the X-Men. Now it took every bit of that power to keep him there.*  
  
[* The short short version of X-MEN #77-78.]  
  
For a well-trained telepath like Psylocke--even one who's been manipulated, body-swapped, and reborn through personality-altering forces--her sixth sense was under as precise control as sight. Containing the Shadow King was truly as simple as forcing one's self to stare at a convict to keep him from escaping an unlocked cell. Simple, not easy. The endless sight of a grotesquerie like the Shadow King was a miserable duty at times, and the urge to look away at something more pleasing could become sorely tempting. Farouk knew that. Like a spiteful prisoner with nothing better to do than antagonize his jailer, he "spoke" to her often about letting herself ingore her thankless duty. At Joseph's funeral he suggested she help the active X-Men cope with the loss. During Pagan's rampage in Times Square, he wondered idly if Beast and the Avengers were desperately trying to transmit thoughts requesting backup--and if she was the only one who could possibly receive them in time. When she made love to Warren, he reminded her how much she enjoyed experiencing his feelings along with her own. It was simple to decline.   
  
But never easy.  
  
It was all Warrren Worthington could do just to get an inkling of how this was affecting her. After Psylocke brought the X-Men back from the battle in Kenya, she became more and more reclusive. She'd eventually accepted that she'd have to tell him sooner or later, and did, but only enough to keep him from pestering her about it. Some days were better than others, and occasionally she'd let him treat her to some grand affair as a pick-me-up. But with each passing day, Psylocke was more concerned with her grip on the Shadow King than the rest of her life.  
  
"Betts," he said softly, "you don't have to do this by yourself..."  
  
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. He cared so much, loved her enough that he'd do anything to help her even though there wasn't a thing he could do. Psylocke could see all of that just from his eyes. And just as she was about to smile appreciatively, she felt a burning desire to see more than that--not in his eyes, but his mind. She turned her head away, rejecting the impulse and cringing as if she were naseuous. "You can't help me, Warren. Please, just--"  
  
"Betsy, you've given yourself too big a responsibility." He knew she wouldn't want to accept it, but he didn't have much choice but to say so. "You were the only one there to stop Shadow King in Kenya, but now there's no reason Jean or the Professor or--"  
  
"I can handle this just as well as they can, Warren," she snapped. "All the others threw everything they had at him over the years, and it didn't get us anywhere. Not to boast about it, but I'm the one who defeated the Shadow King, and it seems rather pointless to have anyone else take a crack at him. I just--I just need time to adapt to it. On my own."  
  
Archangel wasn't satisfied. "Betts, you _know_ we've been through this, and--"  
  
"Leave. Me. Alone."  
  
And that was that. Archangel stood up, stretched his wings, and found his costume. "OK. I won't bother you anymore, all right? If that's what you want--"  
  
Psylocke started to realize what he meant. "No--Warren, stop it," she pleaded as she pulled herself out of bed. "I didn't mean that. There's just so much pressure involved in--"  
  
He stared back at her, distraught. "You think I can't see that? I've told you over and over again what I think you should do, but you just go right on shutting yourself away. You don't need my help to call up the X-Men, and I don't need to watch you go it alone, so what am I even doing here?"   
  
His lower lip quivered and he turned toward the nearest window. "I...can't live like this anymore. Maybe when you straighten this out...I'll..." Warren turned back for a second or two, as if he was waiting for just one word from her that could make it all better. She stared back with shock in her eyes, unsure of what do say...  
  
+Words are clunky. There's only one way to get him back, Betsy.+  
  
+Shut up, damn you! Just--+  
  
+Get out of your head? The thought had occurred to me.+  
  
Betsy turned and buried her face in her pillow, too afraid of the threat within her to stop Warren from flying out into the night sky. As she sobbed, she tried to tell herself it was for the best--she could better control the Shadow King without the distraction, and then maybe they could make things work again.  
  
She tried to tell herself that, anyway...  
  
***  
  
"OK, Moonstone, pull back just a bit and shake it."  
  
"I'm _trying_, Songbird, but your elbow is in the way."  
  
"Sorry. Now?"  
  
"_Much_ better. Say when."  
  
"OK...back...back...in a little...now back out...wiggle it a hair...yeeeah. That's it. Ohhhhh yeahhhh..."  
  
"Am I good or what?"  
  
Songbird scooted a few feet back and enjoyed the view. "You're the best, Karla. And here I thought I'd never have it this good without Abe and his expertise. You didn't even need a tool!"  
  
"It was nothing." Moonstone took a seat and admired her own handiwork. "Of course, when one can phase through the components of a monitor station and adjust the reception from the inside-out, one has it easier than the average engineer." Sure enough, the Masters of Evil's monitor--once used for communicating ransom demands to the world's nations*--was now picking up a local station's syndicated programming. The announcer's voice was clear as a bell. "This week's broadcast of Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation's Weekened NAPAAAAAALLLMMMMM...!!!"  
  
[* Back before the T-bolts commandeered the place in THUNDERBOLTS #24-26.]  
  
"Oh goody," Moonstone said with a hint of sarcasm.  
  
"--will not be seen today, so we can bring you this special news update."  
  
Songbird's mouth hung agape. "--da _hell_?!"  
  
"This breaking news just in--Colorado's own...and less than welcome...heroes, the Thunderbolts, have been busy as of late with some unknown activities near or around Mount Charteris..."  
  
"They pre-empted it!" Songbird seethed. "Crap--_I_ pre-empted my own favorite show! I don't BELIEVE this...!"  
  
"Melissa, it's not that big a deal--"  
  
"I charged this issue of _OnSat_ to Hawkeye's Visa for _nothing_!"  
  
Hawkeye walked by the room and did a double-take at the sound of his name. "Do what now?" the gruff, but easygoing, archer blurted in response.  
  
Songbird was in the hot seat. "Oh, uh, hi, Hawkeye. I was just, uh, saying--"  
  
"Songbird's a bit irritated that she used your credit card on this magazine she can't even use," Moonstone interrupted. "Especially after she talked herself out of taking advantage of you and buying a home theatre system."  
  
"Is that a fact?" Hawkeye mused, thumbing through the satellite listings. "Ahh, ain't no thing. We can still use this when we get the reception up and running."  
  
"We already did," Moonstone offered helpfully.   
  
He looked up to the enormous monitor to see continuing news coverage of himself, promising to prove to the world that the Thunderbolts--dangerous fugitives from justice whom he had been aiding and abetting for weeks--would reform into true and respected heroes. "Well, hey--not bad, you two. Just do me a favor, Songbird, and don't go running off into town with my plastic anymore. Now, if you ladies'll excuse me, Br'er Hawkeye's gotta see if he's gotten any word from an old friend..."  
  
The two women sat silently for a few moments after he left.  
  
"You know," Songbird, who had never remotely considered getting a home theatre system, told Moonstone, "your BS is a lot less annoying when you're spewing it to bail my butt out of trouble."  
  
"Oh, it was nothing," Moonstone smiled. "Any chance to fiddle with the man. Besides, once he saw himself on TV you could have stolen his pants and he wouldn't have minded."  
  
"Ugh. Don't even _go_ there, Karla."  
  
"Why?" Moonstone asked, gesutring to their leader's image on the screen. "For all his bluster, he isn't all that unattractive."  
  
Songbird arched an eyebrow. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were sweet on the guy. So, what _is_ it with him and that 'Br'er Hawkeye' junk? Who does he think he is, Uncle Remus?"  
  
"Maybe we should ask the Avengers for a pamphlet so we can translate him to English."  
  
They chuckled quietly. Moonstone and Songbird were hardly best of friends, despite having been in the Thunderbolts since the beginning. They were from very different worlds--Moonstone, an amoral, self-absorbed psychologist; Songbird, a hot-tempered, impassioned ex-wrestler--but they could generally tolerate each other's company. Still, where other superheroines might converse at length about any subject, Karla Sofen and Melissa Gold only made the pretense of civility.  
  
The main thing they had in common was this team. They had run into each other occasionally as supervillains, but it wasn't until Baron Zemo hatched a plot to form a team of Masters of Evil to portray heroes that they truly interracted. While the Thunderbolts gave Songbird the freedom to explore a relationship with her teammate, MACH-1, Moonstone looked for ways to turn Zemo's scheme to her advantage. Both paths led them to turn against the baron--Songbird for heroism, Moonstone for pure opportunistic avarice. Along with Jolt, Atlas, and MACH-1, they tried aimlessly to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public for months after that. That changed when their occasional foe, Hawkeye, decided to take the Thunderbolts under his guidance. They enjoyed newfound success where they'd floundered with Moonstone as leader. But that success came with a high price...especially for Songbird.  
  
Hawkeye wanted to give the Thunderbolts a chance to make up for their crimes, but there was one crime he felt could only be repaid in prison: Murder. MACH-1 was the only Thunderbolt wanted for that particular felon, so in exchange for Hawkeye's help, Abe Jenkins would have to turn himself in. Songbird protested, and continued to hold a grudge against Hawkeye for his actions. But MACH-1 agreed to surrender himself, and before he left Songbird's side he made her promise not to tell Hawkeye about the other Thunderbolt who'd murdered in the past. And thus, Moonstone remained on the team, a constant reminder to Songbird that she and her lover were the only ones in the world who witnessed a cold-blooded murder, committed in an alien dimension.** The fact she was even sitting here talking to Moonstone while MACH-1 sat alone in prison ate awy at her. Moonstone knew that, just as she knew how badly Songbird wanted to reveal that dirty little secret...  
  
[** In the classic THUNDERBOLTS #14]  
  
They chuckled quietly and grew silent for a long pause.  
  
***  
  
From: "Black Widow"   
To: "Hawkeye"   
Subject: Re: Ol' Hawkeye Needs a Favor...  
  
MIME-Version: 1.0  
Received: from 000.000.000.00 by www.starksolutions.com with HTTP  
X-Originating-IP: [000.000.000.00]   
Received: from smtp.starksolutions.com (www.starksolutions.com [000.00.0.000]) by smtp.tbolts.org (none o' yer damn business) with ESMTP id WAA23243 for   
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Message-ID:   
  
Hawkeye wrote:  
blackwidow wrote:  
Hawkeye wrote:  
  
Hey, 'Tash.  
  
Hope you don't mind me usin' the old private Avengers LAN, but I always   
thought it was one of Tony's better ideas, and my current line of work   
makes it nice and secret-like.  
  
The disadvantage of it being the Avengers haven't used it much since he   
whipped up those communicards--that's why it took me so long to get back to   
you.   
  
Then again, I guess it's harder for you to snap your login and password in   
half to prove a point to Cap.  
  
Yeah, yeah. Nice to hear from you too, babe.  
  
I think you'll be glad to know the team is shaping together real nice. Atlas has even started calling me "boss." Never thought I'd take it as a   
compliment to get the same treatment Zemo used to, but at least I know he's   
got my back. I even found this new kid looking to sign up with   
us--Charcoal's his name. The others don't trust him because they had some   
scraps with him. Me, I kind of like the irony of them having to learn to   
trust someone from their rogue's gallery.  
  
I'll just bet you gave them lots of time to adjust to that one, too.  
  
Um...OK, so I'm the most personible leader in the universe. I'm still   
better than Cyclops with the X-Men, I bet.  
  
I'm still working out getting   
him and Jolt into school, so they get the opportunities ol' Hawkeye   
never had.  
  
Beating around the bush ain't my style, so enough small talk. Back when you  
and Herc were in the Champions, you guys had some flying funny-car, and I   
figure it's gotta be in mothballs somewhere. Wanna do me a real big favor   
and work it out so I can get a hold of it? It's no Quinjet, but I'm not   
one to be picky.  
  
Let me get this straight, Clint. You want me to give the Champscraft to the   
Masters of Evil. Is that what you want me to do?  
  
No, the MOE can't really use the Champscraft, or whatever it is, becuase   
they're too busy licking their wounds from where the T-bolts whipped their   
asses. You should've seen 'em, Tash. I was down for the count and they   
mopped the Masters up without me.  
  
Clint, I slightly understand what you're doing with the Thunderbolts. I   
even gave Screaming Mimi and the Beetle a little sermon,  
  
That's Songbird and MACH-1 now, Tash. Those two especially paid their   
dues in the Hawkeye School of Hard Knocks, so unless you want a screamer  
arrow with your name on it...  
  
All right, all right. No offense intended.  
  
just to clear my   
conscience. But just because we both used to run on the wrong side of the   
tracks is no reason to feel obligated to go stockpiling equipment for some   
other ex-criminals. I'm not going to start playing holier-than-thou with   
them, but to be honest, _I_ wouldn't give _me_ an assault vehicle six months  
after I broke ties with the Communists.  
  
Oh, yeah? Guess who would? Your friendly neighborhood bowman, that's who.  
  
Think this through a little more, will you? This would just give them   
something to run you over with, if you gave it to them.  
  
  
Mind's made up, Tash. You can give me the keys to the car, or I'll just go   
ask Beast if he can get the X-guys to loan me the Blackbird while you try   
and talk me out of it.  
  
Your call.  
  
Look, I've got some business to attend to, and I don't have time to argue about this. I'll try and locate the Champscraft and have it shipped to you in...Burton Canyon, Colorado, right? I don't know what aliases you're using these days; it'll be waiting for Clint Barton, so take care around the T-bolts when you pick it up.  
  
_Do_ tell me you haven't given them your real name. Then again, you were naive enough to get mixed up with me once upon a time...  
  
--H  
Natasha  
--H  
Natasha  
  
***  
  
Amanda Robey had been working in the secretarial pool at Worthington Industries' New York office for six months. She'd come to expect a certain set of occurrances in that time. Her boss walking up to her desk, soaked to the bone, was not one of them.  
  
"Ms. Robey? Warren Worthington. Pleased to meet you."  
  
Amanda could do nothing but gawk at the principal stockholder and chairman of the board. "Uh..."  
  
"Oh, right," Warren said absently. "I guess I must look absurd, sopping wet like this. I didn't take the limo, and I spent the whole morning in this storm. Murphy's Law, huh?"  
  
Amanda gawked. "Uh..."  
  
"Listen, I know I usually never come around here, but I was told you're the one they've got redirecting all my work to the rest of the bigwigs. I'd...um...kinda like you to direct some my way. Personal problems are..." he trailed off at the thought of it, but refused to let it bog him down, "...are getting to me, and I need something to bury myself in for a while."  
  
"Sir? Were you aware that you're...um...blue?"  
  
Warren put his palm to his forehead. He'd been in such a rush to get away from Betsy that he'd forgotten to disguise his telltale skin color. He wasn't afraid of people knowing about it, but it was no small wonder that this woman was disturbed. Secretaries at Stark-Fujikawa and Baintronics didn't have these problems. Edwin Cord probably change colors in between visits to the Cordco home office.  
  
"It's a long story," he told her. Which wasn't the half of it. Once he had just been able to tuck his flexible wings up against his back and under his suit to avoid making a scene. That problem was exchanged for another when the avian appendages had to be removed. Warren--the Angel in those days--became despondent and desperate for another chance to fly, and got what he wanted when he accepted the aid of Apocalypse in exchange for serving the supervillain. Warren took to the air once more as Apocalypse's blue-hued Horseman of Death, a mockery of his former self complete with techno-organic steel wings. Ultimately removing himself from Apocalypse's influence, he became the sullen Archangel that had only recently begun to take back his life. The steel wings had mysteriously been replaced with a "normal" feathered pair*, but Warren would always have his azure face to remind him of his fall. "Just give me something to work on and I'll get out of your way."  
  
[* In the rather baffling UNCANNY X-MEN #338]  
  
"Well, there's a board meeting in about twenty minutes--"  
  
Warren groaned quietly. "Reschedule it."  
  
"Umm...a meeting with Osborn Chemical--"  
  
"Cancel it."  
  
Amanda was growing tense from her inability to accommadate him. "Oh! Here's something--it was sent to you personally, but I was told to file it away. Then again, since you're here to receive it..." She handed him a memorandum. "Apparently it's from a Natasha Romanov..."  
  
Warren lit up. "Well, well, well...might be just what I'm looking for," he replied. He took the memo and began reading it. As he went on, his brow furrowed and his interest rose. "Uh-_huh_. Amanda, is it? Amanda, was there anything else from Ms. Romanov?"  
  
"No, sir. Just that."  
  
"Curioser and curiouser. Has this request been approved?"  
  
Amanda shrugged. "I'll need time to check, but that note came in last week. I'm sorry you weren't notified, but I was instructed not to worry about contacting you before passing these things along..."  
  
"Hm. Can you get me in touch with Avengers Mansion?" Warren stared off into space for a moment before noticing his secretary's discomfort. "It's all right, Amanda--the odds were a million-to-one I'd have wanted to check out that memo. You were told the right thing. It's just that Ms. Romanov is a...difficult woman to verify things with." His gaze shifted again and he muttered questions to himself. "Now, what would she need with the Champscraft...?"  
  
"Excuse me, sir?" Amanda was trying her best to stay cool, but Warren wasn't making it easy on her. "Avengers Mansion?"  
  
"That's right," he responded. "Our lady has a certain archer friend over there, if I'm not mistaken. If he can't get in touch with Natasha, maybe he can at least tell me who in Colorado might want a run-down old transport for a bunch of superheroes..."  
  
As Archangel paced around Amanda's desk waiting for the call to go through, the storm that had drenched him earlier that morning let loose with a deafening, ominous thunderbolt...  
  
***  
  
NEXT: If you can't beat it, Warren... 


	2. Atlas Shrugged! (But Songbird Did All t...

Spinning from the events of their spiffy Marvel comic, the THUNDERBOLTS team up with the X-Men's ARCHANGEL to save San Francisco from the menace of GRAVITON! But the destinies of all our heroes take a decidedly different turn than it did in the comics, as we break away from Marvel canon in this installment of...  
  
NEXT BEST THING   
The fanfic that is used as currency in some European economies!  
by Jim Smith  
  
Chapter 2! "Atlas Shrugged! (But Songbird Did All the Work...)"  
  
  
With a little dialogue borrowed from KURT BUSIEK!  
Continuity guide provided by special guest stars PRYDE and WISDOM!  
Some pseudoscience supplied by DAVE VAN DOMELEN!  
A zillion synonyms for "scream" from ROGET'S 21st CENTURY THESAURUS!  
And, of course, Lassie...  
  
***  
  
"--Voila! One genuine Champscraft--built for the Champions but mothballed after they disbanded! It's a little old and dusty, but it's all here--and it's all ours!"  
  
"A used car. How...practical."  
  
"Gift horses, Moonstone. You gotta admit, the price was right--since it was free."  
  
"Wait a minute--the Champions? I've heard the name, but--"  
  
"They were a super-team, based out of Los Angeles a few years back--before you were active as Screaming Mimi, I think. They called themselves "the team for the common man," though I'm not sure how that made 'em different from the rest of us. Their members were pretty uncommon, though--some guys came an' went, but mostly they were Hercules, Ghost Rider, my ol' pal the Black Widow--the ex-X-Man called Iceman, and--"  
  
"--And one more, archer, whom you'd have been smart to remember--"  
  
"Huh? Aw--nuts!"  
  
"--Namely, Warren K. Worthington III--better known back then as the Avenging Angel! It's Archangel these days--but I still take an interest in old Champions business--especially since all the old Champs equipment is in storage at Worthington Industries! When Natasha's memo came in, directing the Champscraft to be shipped out here, I couldn't verify it with her--so I came out to see who was getting it. And what do I find but a renegade Avenger--and a pair of wanted super-crooks!"  
  
"Angel, wait! We don't--"  
  
***  
  
Just then, THUNDERBOLTS #27 was interrupted by Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, walking in for their obligatory cameo.  
  
KITTY: Hi, folks! Pryde and Wisdom here, continuing our plot to appear in every single fanfic in existence! Today we're providing some continuity notes for this story! Why us, when we don't have a thing to do with it? Well, Jim Smith figured he'd get into Fonts of Wisdom one way or the other, so he paid us to--(aside) you _did_ get the money, right--?  
  
PETE: Oi shore az 'ell did! Oi kin bouy me a bloody truckload of fags with this 'ere lewt!  
  
KITTY: As I was saying, Jim paid us to present this handy explanation. The first part of this fanfic served as a prologue to the events of THUNDERBOLTS #27, which is back up there a few paragraphs...  
  
PETE: Cor, ain't no one gonna pay attention to yew when yew say the T-word, luv! Better take yer pants awff b'fore they go to sleep!  
  
KITTY: Oh yeah. (removes pants) Anyway, since you can just go to the store and buy the comics, Jim wants to skip to after the Thunderbolts make friends with Archangel and go off to fight Graviton. Only problem is, #29 ended with a cliffhanger, and the story spilled over into #30, which puts us in a bind.  
  
PETE: Whoy doesn't the bloke just set this part of the story _after_ #30, then?  
  
KITTY: Because that issue has an even _bigger_ cliffhanger! (shows him the last page)  
  
PETE: Strewth! That fellow's gonna 'ave a three-way!  
  
KITTY: Sure, right. So, before we get to the _real_ plot of this fanfic, Jim's gotta bump off Graviton real quick. Won't take too long, we promise.  
  
PETE: (frantically staring at last page of THUNDERBOLTS #30) This is f***in' incredible! Oi think this blonde is all into the other one watchin' her go down on this chap! Kitty, why the 'ELL 'aven't we been bouying this rag?  
  
KITTY: Because I can't afford any comics besides X-Books, you nimrod. Everybody knows the average annual income in the world is _exactly_ $238.80, give or take the occasional issue of UNLIMITED. If I bought this too, we'd have to put another mortgage on the mansion!  
  
PETE: So...are we done 'ere?  
  
KITTY: I guess.  
  
PETE: Wanna shag right 'ere on the floor, or wait until after that introduction to the Hellblazer/Xander/Pokemon crossover?  
  
KITTY: *pish!* We are _so_ not just for the sole purpose of titillating Excalibur fans with our gratuitous sex scenes, Pete. Have a _little_ decency.  
  
PETE: Under that table, then?  
  
KITTY: Take me, Wisdom. Take me now.  
  
JIM SMITH: (firing a shotgun in the air) Hey! Hey, you goldang kids! Quit'cher philandery and git offa mah property! G'wan, git! (chases them off) I expect these shenanigans from #subcafe After Dark, but this is too much! Now...where was I...oh yes, of course.  
  
The story resumed, picking back up with the end of THUNDERBOLTS #29...  
  
***  
  
"I HAVE THE POWER! I HAVE THE VISION! I HAVE IT ALL! I'm GRAVITON! YOU HEAR ME?! I'M GRAVITONNN..."  
  
No sooner had Archangel located the Champscraft and discovered the Thunderbolts picking it up than he found himself going to their base and investigating this team of ex-villains. While there, they learned of Graviton's plot to make himself the ruler of his own nation by levitating an island over San Francisco and drafting "citizens". The Thunderbolts, always looking for an opportunity to prove themselves, took off to confront the self-styled master of gravity, and he'd accompanied them. Until Jolt and Charcoal showed up to even the odds with some armbands that "cancel the gravity equation," they had been on the ropes. He and the Thunderbolts had only just started putting a dent in Graviton's defenses when a few discouraging remarks by Moonstone made him snap. He was glowing with power and raving like a lunatic.*  
  
[* All of which happened in THUNDERBOLTS #27-29. But you knew that.]  
  
Graviton had told his people to stay back during the fight--now they were taking that order one step further and evacuating "Sky Island" to avoid defeat and capture. Whatever Graviton had in store, he wouldn't hurt anyone besides a motley crew of quasi-heroes and one good-for-nothing winged mutant.  
  
On the bright side, Warren mused, at least he'd gotten his mind off Betsy.  
  
Before anyone could brace themselves for Graviton's coup de grace, however, it failed to materialize. The swirling energy surrounding him slowed, then stopped, and then swirled again in the opposite direction. He was so busy whining that it would have been impossible to tell if he even knew what was happening, as the gravitic field he was manipulating began to cave in on him. In his tantrum, the supervillain had inadvertently lashed out in the wrong direction, and instead of repelling everything around him he'd been exponentially increasing the gravitational pull of his center of mass. Like a dying star, each molecule of his body weighed several tons as he collapsed in on himself. Graviton might well have become a black hole if his death hadn't cut off his power. His 138-pound corpse, compacted into the size of a golf ball, plopped harmlessly to the ground.  
  
"Well, hey," Hawkeye lit up. "That wasn't so bad."  
  
What the archer had nearly forgotten, though, was that the ground Graviton's body plopped harmlessly onto was floating about two miles over San Francisco.  
  
"Sky Island's still in the air!" Songbird shouted, trying to get her bearings.  
  
"Machine Man told us to expect something like that," Jolt added. "The gravitational field Graviton made should stick around for a few minutes, even though its been cut off at the source!"  
  
Hawkeye surveyed the situation. "That doesn't change the fact that this baby's gonna leave a big mark when it falls onto the city...Songbird! You're the only one here who's got half a chance of movin' something this big!"  
  
"Are you crazy, Hawkeye!? I--"  
  
"Do it!" he snapped. "At least get it as close to the bay as you can before gravity kicks in!" Not that Hawkeye knew what he'd do if the island were still over the city when it regained its natural weight, of course. As usual, he'd deal with that later.  
  
A Songbird flew off, Archangel chimed in. "Maybe Moonstone and I should get us off this island before--"  
  
Hawkeye ignored him. "Jolt, I don't suppose Machine Man considered this situation when he built you these armbands..."  
  
"He sure did!" Jolt beamed. She was having a blast being the one with the last-minute solutions, even if there was a good chance of them being squashed. She took off her gravity-canceling armband and began tinkering with it. "He made sure this would be easy for me to recalibrate--I can use each of the armbands to hold the island up for...fifteen, twenty seconds or so. There wasn't much time, and the place is so big, we--"  
  
"Atlas and Charcoal got flung off the island," Hawkeye recalled, "and there's no time for Songbird to fly back and give you her armband...that gives us less than a minute and half of sudden death overtime. We're gonna have to make the best of it..."  
  
"There must be something else we can do," Archangel pondered.  
  
The Thunderbolts' leader shook his head. "It's Songbird's game now."  
  
***  
  
The technology had been conceived and developed by Ulysses Klaw, but adapted to fit her needs by a former Thunderbolt, Techno. Songbird's bionically enhanced larynx had once been for nothing more than producing a vertiginous screech during her criminal career as Screaming Mimi. She'd damaged the cybernetics, however, while crying over the death of an old lover. Techno couldn't repair her vocal cords, so he hooked them up to a carapace that she wore around her shoulders to translate her voice into sonic force fields. She'd learned how to fly with this power, and how to hold other objects aloft inside big pink bubbles. Now it was just a matter of making a big enough bubble and pushing it out over the bay in mere minutes.  
  
Songbird shrieked, and the soundwaves were noiselessly converted into a pinkish energy that burst out of her carapace and danced around Sky Island, stretching to completely encase it. She'd underestimated, though--her cry wasn't strong enough to spread the field entirely around the island. A few deep breaths and she yelled at it some more, inaudibly screaming bloody murder at the hunk of earth until, slowly, the field had enough sonic power to achieve the necessary size.   
  
Maintaining the field's integrity was not quite so complicated, as the bionics in her larynx took over to ensure that each breath was channeled into just the right frequency and amplitude to keep the bubble and her wings intact. It was as though her vocal cords were automatically, flawlessly hitting each note in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. There was some level of conscious thought required, but Songbird was so experienced at this point that it was almost instinctive--as long as she kept breathing and kept concentrating, her song would continue.  
  
But Sky Island was easily the largest object she'd ever tried to move--it was more like singing Beethoven's Ninth at the Royal Albert Hall for an audience on the moon. Her chest heaved and her nostrils flared, though she made absolutely no sound beyond her labored breathing. She was frustrated and upset. Good, she decided. Use it; imagine all her troubles are on the island and let 'em have it. She deliberately baited herself, reminding herself of whatever she could think of to rile her up. While they'd been fighting Graviton earlier, Songbird had nearly fallen to her death when he'd made her carapace weigh several tons. Hawkeye had saved her, and when they were briefly imprisoned on the island she tried to throw herself at him like some lovesick princess thanking her shining knight. They'd worked it out, but it had been an incredibly emotional and mortifying moment. Right now she was screaming her lungs out at it.  
  
Sky Island finally began to move.  
  
What the hell had she been thinking, trying to make it with Hawkeye? Hawkeye! And in the middle of a blasted prison cell, with the others in earshot? How far was she going to go before he stopped her? She tried to imagine what he must think of her now--the little tramp who only got mixed up with all these hardened criminals because she didn't care who was sticking it to her each night, as long as someone was. A slut who couldn't even wait a minute after her lover went to prison before she had to find some new meat. The other Thunderbolts had been terrorists, killers, mercenaries, and world-conquering madmen, but she was nothing but a two-bit--  
  
Sky Island was in spitting distance from the bay.  
  
And maybe that was true. Hell, maybe that was all there was to her. She wasn't proud of her life before the Grapplers, but maybe it was what she was best at. At least she did better than other women had. Maybe all she was good for was to stand around and look good, and give the boys a good time. Maybe that's why Cyclone made a pass at her once when they fought the Masters of Evil. Maybe that's why Techno wanted her to be his "reward" for helping Zemo taking over the world. Maybe that's why she flirted with Archang--  
  
Her eyes widened, her breath became tense and shortened, and her lips curled into a feral sneer. With one last blood-curdling scream, Sky Island was flying out over the bay. San Francisco was safe at last.  
  
Songbird's carapace, on the other hand, blew up.  
  
***  
  
"Attagirl," Hawkeye muttered under his breath as he stood on the edge of the island, watching the city pass out from under him. He spoke up to the others. "That last push even gave us enough momentum to land far enough away that the tidal wave shouldn't hit the city too bad. Looks like we just gotta worry about getting ourselves--"  
  
Hawkeye's quiver exploded, knocking him forward and over the edge of Sky Island at almost the exact second Songbird's field abruptly dissipated. As he fell, smaller conflagrations popped in the compartments of his tunic straps.  
  
"Hawkeye!" Moonstone shouted as her comrade fell. "Grab Jolt, Archangel, and we'll--"  
  
Archangel complied but interrupted her. His eyesight was keen from years of aerobatics, and he'd happened to have been keeping his focus on a certain spot in the sky "Better rethink that plan, Moonstone--he's not the only T-bolt in trouble!"  
  
***  
  
Songbird's carapace had several pink nodules sticking up from it like headlights on the chassis of a vintage automobile. These were the primary and auxiliary transducers, necessary for converting the vibratory energy of sound into the physical force that shaped her sonic constructs. As she fell out of the sky, each of them burst like popcorn and became useless for flying. She curled into a ball, covering her face with her hands and hoping none of the shrapnel hit her--a slim chance when she was wearing a dozen tiny bombs. Even so, the transducers were pointed away from her head and chest, sparing her from serious injury. She was still falling, though, and there was no way she could save herself without the carapace.  
  
It was too much, she thought. Only a few seconds before she'd been moping about Hawkeye saving her when her powers failed in mid-air, and now she was in that predicament all over again. Step right up, boys--save the Songbird with the broken wings and let her fall over herself trying to make it worth your while. Hey, she'd suddenly remembered the time the Black Knight saved her from the Super-Adaptoid, and she fawned over him enough to make MACH-1 jealous for about a week. Oh, and she certainly did her best to make it up to Abe afterwards, didn't she? It was a big vicious circle, and as she fell to her death she couldn't really bring herself to wish it wasn't ending.  
  
But it wouldn't end. The people who designed the cybernetics in her throat took the liberty of modifying her hearing to withstand her own ear-piercing attack, so even while she clutched her face in despair she could hear someone flying to her rescue. It was like George Reeves's cape whooshing all over the place in that cheesy old TV show. Let's get it over with, she decided. Come and get me, Mister Hero, and see what you can get...  
  
One arm reached around her back, the other scooped her legs up at the knees, and suddenly she could feel the sinews of muscles tightening to support her weight. She could once again feel the familiar sensation of flight--even if she wasn't holding herself up on her own wings--but she needed a moment before she could open her eyes again. "Thanks for the assist, Wings," she told Archangel, "but don't expect my eternal devotion or anything."  
  
"I'll be sure to bear that in mind, if I ever grow a pair of wings."  
  
Not Archangel. Songbird slowly pulled her hands away and saw the wry grin of Moonstone, her masked expression of amusement staring right back at her. They both knew why she'd been expecting someone else. "Just so you don't feel completely foolish," she told her, "Archangel _was_ the one who chivalrously noticed you falling. But he had more experience flying with people as badly hurt as Hawkeye, so I came after you."  
  
"Right. Yeah." Songbird looked away, feeling too awkward to even ask what happened to Hawkeye. "Um, no offense, Karla. I'd just assumed--"  
  
Moonstone rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax, Songbird. I'd be a pretty sorry psychaitrist if I didn't notice the your association between the opposite sex and being rescued. You _hardly_ have to apologize to me for not feeling quite so..." she searched for a diplomatic way to phrase it "..._grateful_ to me as you would to a man. You were falling. I caught you. Just a cigar."  
  
Songbird was noticeably relieved--it was easier to get that out of the way when she knew Moonstone knew what she'd thought. "OK, never mind," she replied. "I've been on edge since last night in the prison. But you still saved my life, and I guess I _do_ owe you--"  
  
"Yes," Moonstone said flatly, dropping her cheery facade. "You do."  
  
And they both knew what she meant...  
  
***  
  
Archangel had planned to leave as soon as Graviton was dealt with--tell the Thunderbolts they'd proven themselves to him and that they could keep the Champscraft--but Hawkeye was hurt badly, and he couldn't just take off until he was safe. The archer had essentially become one of America's Most Wanted by aligning with the Thunderbolts, and checking him into a hospital wasn't an option. At least they'd found out on long trip back to Colorado that the injuries were only bad burns on his back, and not critical spinal damage.  
  
Once Hawkeye was safely back at HQ, it was just a matter of determining which of the base's extensive battery of equipment could be used to treat him. Atlas's military training gave him just enough knowledge in triage to make sure the bowman was stable, and finally the team had gotten him patched up and laying on his bed.  
  
"At least we know what happened," Atlas commented to Hawkeye as the team surrounded the fallen leader. "Just gotta call from the Avengers warning you that vibranium everywhere is exploding,* so you need to get rid of all your arrows that use the stuff before it's too late." He shrugged. "Better late than never--huh, boss?"  
  
[* See CAPTAIN AMERICA #20-22 for the straight poop.]  
  
"I'll live," Hawkeye groaned. "Lucky for me, I've always got arrowheads that blow up, so I make sure my costumes unstable molecules can protect me from the blast if they detonate prematurely. My suspender thingies held up--just some scratches there--but my quiver might as well've been ground zero." He turned his head to Songbird, flinching as he realized he hurt himself doing it. "But we're _really_ lucky you're okay, Songbird. I guess Techno refined Klaw's technology enough that there was only a little vibranium in your carapace."  
  
"I hate to bring up the bad news," Moonstone observed, "but with one Thunderbolt recuperating and one grounded indefinitely we may have a hard time keeping the public relations momentum we built off of Graviton. We're not the Avengers..." she glanced to Archangel "...or the X-Men, and we're not in the position to take time off to lick our wounds."  
  
"They're my wounds, Moonstone--and in your dreams." Hawkeye tried sitting up, but when that didn't work, he opted to look imposing from his pillow. "Everything else you said, though, would be a pretty nice segue for our next piece of business. I've been mulling over this for a while now, and I'm not much for talking people into things, so I'll just throw it out and see what sticks. Archangel...how'd you like to join the Thunderbolts?"  
  
Archangel was floored. Sure, he'd worked well with this team, but how could he fit in with this bunch of sociopaths and hotheads? These definitely weren't the X-Men--hell, even the New Defenders were more stable--and just being seen with them had probably resulted in a nationwide manhunt for him. The Thunderbolts, however, weren't quite as unsure of the idea.  
  
"Well, hey, that _would_ work pretty good! We know we can count on Wings!"  
  
"With his connections we'd be better aligned with more superheroes..."  
  
"Then we could start borrowing the X-Men's stuff too! I want a Bamf doll!"  
  
On the bright side, Warren mused, he'd _really_ gotten his mind off Betsy...  
  
***  
  
NEXT: Behold...the five flunkies of apocalypse... 


	3. And now--the Qonkystadorz!

MOONSTONE! SONGBIRD! ATLAS! JOLT! CHARCOAL! Led by the man called HAWKEYE, this team of Marvel's Most Wanted fugitives tries to redeem their criminal pasts by proving themselves as honorable superheroes! But a freak accident has left them in dire need of reinforcements, and now they call upon the only friend they have to aid their cause! He's been trying to get away from his ties to the uncanny X-MEN, but will ARCHANGEL go so far as to join the THUNDERBOLTS? Find out in...  
  
NEXT BEST THING   
The fanfic that asks that literary question..."Next Best Thing?"  
by Jim Smith  
  
Chapter 3! "And now--the Qonkystadorz!"  
  
***  
  
Credit Where Credit Is Due Dept.: Special thanks to Analyssa Cotton for beta-reading Part 2 so I could be sure my use of Tastee® Brand Lesbian Innuendo (Which is mentioned yet again in this part! Woo-hoo!) wouldn't be misconstrued by the readers. Lyssie probably thought the satirical (and not very funny) reference to "Lassie" in the last part's opening credits had something to do with her, and I didn't realize it might have been insulting until right now. Oops.  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics, and no profit is being made from this unauthorized usage of them. Copyright of me, baby. Feedback encouraged, and paid for on occasion.  
  
This story will be archived on the Thunderbolts Fan Fiction Archive , but if you want it too, just email me at .  
  
Continuity Alert: This story diverges from Marvel continuity right after THUNDERBOLTS #29, which means all that shiz-nit Archangel's up to in ASTONISHING X-MEN doesn't apply here.  
  
***  
  
My name was Dr. Karla Sofen, aka Moonstone.  
  
It still is, of course, but I have to avoid tense shifts. Case studies are far easier to write than fan fiction, let me assure you.  
  
Why am I...excuse me. Why _was_ I narrating this chapter? It wasn't as if the reader cared one way or the other. The reader scrolled down to make sure "Jubes" or "Remy" didn't appear in this file and went on to the next piece of flotsam on the internet. There were only two things that could have won his/her attention. One started with "X." The other rhymed with it.   
  
Fortunately, I had written about both of them.  
  
You see, the somewhat whiny author had decided to improve his publicity by catering to the majority, and to simultaneously thumb his nose at it by sticking me and the other Thunderbolts in it. Everyone was happy. Well, I wasn't, because most of the feedback for this story so far was about that blasted Pryde/Wisdom filler material in the last chapter. As if any lower primate couldn't have written that drivel. In the future, readers would be advised to format their reactions in the form of "Why Moonstone made this fanfic worth reading..."  
  
Ahem. Jim said to move on. As I had been about to mention, the last chapter ended on a bit of a cliffhanger...  
  
***  
  
Archangel was standing off in the corner of the room, distancing himself from the rest of us while we tended to Hawkeye. He was just as concerned for our fearless leader, mind you--he just knew his place was outside of the team. So he was still standing there when I noted two of our ranks were in no shape to go crimefighting, giving Hawkeye the opening to ask Archangel to join the Thunderbolts.  
  
Before he could answer, a few of us had expressed our support of the idea, but Charcoal wanted more. "Look, before Archangel gives us his answer," he said with all the meekness of a boy who himself only recently joined the team, "I think we need to kind of take a vote. I know some of you guys weren't real keen on me joining, and I understand why*. We shouldn't have to go through that again. I'm cool with whatever you want to do, Archangel, but if anyone isn't--"  
  
[* Charcoal gave the team a tough fight in THUNDERBOLTS #19]  
  
"You've got a point, kid," Hawkeye groaned. It was hard to say whether the dull pain in his voice came from having his quiver explode on his back earlier that day, or because he was being forced to admit he didn't give the rest of us any time to adjust to having a former enemy in the team. I smiled; had anyone told him he was beautiful when he was being humbled?   
  
"OK," he continued, "everybody speak your mind, and don't be bashful."  
  
Jolt immediately spoke up. "He worked great with us so far--and even if some people don't like mutants, he's not a wanted criminal or anything. It'd say a lot about us for a guy like him to _want_ to hang around with us."  
  
I couldn't help but be amused. Hallie was clearly interested in Archangel for something entirely other than his reputation. The gleam in her eye had been there since he first arrived at our base, and she hadn't learned to be subtle about it yet. Despite his inhuman wings and blue skin, there was no denying he was attractive. Still, Jolt had never seemed to notice boys in all the time I'd known her, and I'd forgotten about a few certain details   
involved in bringing a fifteen-year-old girl into the Thunderbolts**. Much as I'd have loved watching Hawkeye squirm while giving Jolt "the talk," it was probably better left to me to cover whatever her parents hadn't before they died. She wouldn't like it much. Ever since Hallie had learned I wasn't a superhero named Meteorite who thought of her as a daughter, she'd avoided letting me worm my way back into the role of her surrogate mother. She was a fool to trust me--to love me--and she wouldn't take that chance with me again.  
  
[** Moonstone took Jolt under her wing in T-BOLTS #4-10]  
  
Hmmm...I lost my train of thought.  
  
After Jolt made her opinion known, Atlas was more than willing to say his piece. He was intensely loyal--he probably wouldn't have become such a notorious criminal if he hadn't felt so obligated to serve far more dangerous people. Jolt had been the first positive influence on him in years, and his loyalty to her had made him loyal to the team she'd striven to keep together after we had turned on Baron Zemo. Atlas would have died for us--any of us--so it was important to him that he agreed with us. "He's got my vote," he declared. "Just 'cause we weren't his favorite guys didn't keep him from givin' us the benefit of the doubt, or helpin' us against Graviton. We've all had problems with each other, but we stick together, y'know? We can count on Wings the same way." Blunt, but well stated, Erik.  
  
"I'm convinced," I said, and nothing more. I liked to keep the Thunderbolts on their toes, ever unsure about my motives and reasoning. They'd all known me for a long time now, and--even though Atlas was on the mark about us sticking together--they all knew not to trust me. It was a challenge to make sure I _could_ con them when I needed to...but I liked that challenge.  
  
Songbird had been very quiet since we'd left San Francisco, and was slow to speak. She could tell I was staring at her, awaiting what she had to say. Her carapace had been damaged a mile or two over the bay area, leaving her to fall to hear death and watch her life pass before her eyes. What she had seen was surely a lifetime of falling in love with whomever happened to save her from her self-made plight. It was a serious issue for Melissa, to the point that she'd been sure Archangel would save her to complete her self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, when _I_ had turned out to be the one who caught her, she fell over herself trying to talk her way out of repaying me the way she had for the men in her life.   
  
(Did she really expect me to _want_ sexual favors from her? It made sense, really. Sex was just a tool for me to use to achieve my goals, so there was no particular reason for me to limit my use of it to heterosexuality. But it was a line I'd never had cause to cross--or even think about--and I certainly wouldn't have crossed it with Melissa.)  
  
As I'd been saying, Songbird knew I'd caught her all but fantasizing about Archangel. She knew what I'd think if she approved of letting him on the team--that she was hoping to cheat on MACH-1 while he was in prison. And she hated me for it. That was fine with me, because I knew whenever she thought about how much she despised me, she also thought about how she owed me. Regardless of the subtext that we'd mutually disregarded, Songbird couldn't ignore the fact that I'd saved her live, and we both knew how I wanted that debt repaid. Before Hawkeye took over the Thunderbolts, the team had been trapped in an alien dimension called Kosmos, and I had killed the Kosmosian monarch in an effort to get us home. Songbird was the only current Thunderbolt who knew that, and all I had was a code of silence to make sure she didn't tell the others. Now she was obligated to me, in the most intimate way she knew how to be. It was a perfect set-up--not because I'd made absolutely sure my secret was safe, but because it had been so much fun using Songbird's own hyperactive emotions to keep her in line.  
  
You needed to know all of that to fully appreciate the shaky sound in Songbird's voice when she said, "Same here." I knew I appreciated it.  
  
"Then it's unanimous," Hawkeye concluded. "Angel, the spot's there if you want it. Whadd'ya say?"  
  
He hesitated. There was a lot on Archangel's mind--I could have only guessed at what--and it seemed all of it factored heavily on his decision. But it was an simple choice nonetheless, and the stalling was the X-Man giving himself time to make sure he hadn't oversimplified it.  
  
"I'm in," he finally replied. "And call me Warren."  
  
***  
  
I awoke the next morning to find the tip of a golden arrow breaking the skin of my throat. Though this was a mere trifle to one of my power, I found the brazenness of such a tactic insulting. For my adversary to think me so vulnerable that he could simply stand over my sleeping form and slay me was an affront as well as an error.  
  
I leaped away from him and retrieved Vranphell, the ancient spear that had pierced the newborn world to create the faults that made it shift and quake with fertile instability. As chieftainess of my god-tribe, it was my right and my duty to keep it with me as I fought this battle. I thrust the long shaft at his midsection, knowing he would easily dodge but nonetheless demonstrating that I was not to be underestimated.  
  
"Tell me something, sky-king," I asked of him.  
  
He was intrigued by my words, and that attention made his red eyes glow as if ablaze. So entranced was I by the fiery beauty that I barely avoided his next strike. I heard his voice say +I see no cause to deny your boon, fire-mother+ as his answer, and yet his tongue was stilled at that moment. To whatever magicks he saw fit to use upon such a feat, I paid no mind.  
  
"Each day," I said unto him, "we fight, in this manner, alone and without our respective followers. We do battle, neither of us ever gaining the slightest advantage over the other, until we both become weary and fall to the ground from exhaustion. We rarely grow so hungry that we must be distracted from our strife to seek nourishment, but when we do it is at the same moment that we both lose our strength and must replenish it with the game that wanders through this field. So evenly matched are we that you and I have lived in this manner--naught but eating, sleeping, and making war--for twenty years."  
  
+I have borne witness to these events as clearly as you. What of it?+  
  
"It would appear then," I continued, "that in the midst of our endless war, we have created an unbreakable peace. Perhaps we should seek not to end it, but instead to enjoy it."  
  
+She-god, when we first met on this place, we dismissed our tribes and resolved to end our war in single combat. After five years, you said these same things as you have just spoken, and I answered, 'Perhaps you are right. I shall lay down my bow and my sword and speak more of this with you,' and I laid down my bow and my sword, and you tried to kill me. After ten years, you said these things once more, and I answered, 'Perhaps you are right. Lay down your spear and I shall speak more of this with you,' and you laid down your spear and I tried to kill you. After fifteen years, you said these things once more, and I answered, 'Perhaps you are right. Let us both lay down our arms and lay with one another, so I might sire and you might bear offspring to inherit this peace,' and we lay together and in the night we tried to strangle one another, and we have fought as such ever since. Now, after twenty years, you say these things once more.+  
  
"And what is your answer this time," I asked the storm-sire.  
  
+This time, earth-queen,+ he said, +My eyes have grown weary after twenty years coveting your loins, and I must answer that I am willing to lower my guard for even the faintest hope of coming to know you.+ With that, he threw his weapons away, far from where he stood, and walked towards me, so that he was close enough that I might slay him before he could evade my attack. And so I hurled my spear away and laid prostrate before him.  
  
Thus did we mate, and in the midst of our passion I did lose control of the fire that flowed through the earth, as did he lose control of the storm that inspired the sky. So then was the wind thrown against the earth and became clouds of dust, so then did the flames reach up to meet the rain and become mists, so then did we two become one--as we had always been, but different.  
  
***  
  
I woke up and wondered just what the hell my subconscious was smoking. I'd been having these dreams for a while now*, but now they were getting so clear and descriptive that they were beginning to worry me. No matter how clear the details became, though, they always began to fade moments after I opened my eyes. I couldn't perform a self-analysis for something I couldn't recall, so I ignored my concerns and went on with the rest of the day.  
  
[* We heard about them in THUNDERBOLTS #18 and #28]  
  
Although Archangel had joined the team partly to make up for the loss of Songbird and Hawkeye from the active roster, that didn't change the fact that our team of outlaw heroes (heroic outlaws?) was stuck with a bedridden leader. The Thunderbolts couldn't have holed up for a few days until Hawkeye was well enough to lead them to another victory. Half the struggle with foes like HYDRA, Dominex, and the Masters of Evil was proving we were good little superhumans--the public would have forgotten that if we had rested on our laurels for too long. Under the circumstances, Hawkeye had made me the field commander; he made the decisions and I carried them out.   
  
It was a position I'd become used to. Tired of, in fact. Still...I couldn't deny that I was a much better second-in-command than I was a leader. Everything ran like clockwork when I took a back seat to Baron Zemo...until the second I took over from him. My duplicity in his first team of Masters of Evil got me nothing but a broken neck.** I convinced the Thunderbolts to go behind his back against the Elements of Doom and was nearly poisoned to death.*** Even when the Thunderbolts severed its ties with Zemo and I became the natural choice to lead, the team was a disaster waiting to happen...until Hawkeye showed up.  
  
[** As reprinted in the easy-to-find AVENGERS: UNDER SIEGE trade paperback]  
[*** In the senses-shattering THUNDERBOLTS #7]  
  
But it wasn't like me to mope. As I thought about it, I should have been putting plans into motion to gain Hawkeye's ear--run the team through him somehow. I'd been noticeably lax in my efforts to work him over, though. Certainly, his chaotic personality wasn't easy for me to read, but then neither was Zemo's orderly and well-defended psyche. I never gave up against Zemo; was I simply content with Hawkeye calling my shots? Was I going soft?  
  
I lost my train of thought again.  
  
During Hawkeye's convalescence, I led the team on patrols every day, with increased caution for running into--pardon the cliché--all-new, all-different enemies. It wasn't Archangel's fault, but being a mutant and a long-standing member of the X-Men had made him a target for a completely different set of foes than the rest of us. So-called "evil" mutants, anti-mutant fanatics, megalomaniacal geneticists, aliens from distant galaxies, demons from other dimensions, and dozens of old acquaintances with even older scores to settle. The rest of us wore costumes like him, and many of us were superhuman. But our tribulations were usually simple, and of our own making. Archangel had most of his problems handed to him for the same reason his wings were--he was born. That having been the case, I had given us a week, tops, before we ran into some absurd "X-Villain" with nothing better to do than harass us.   
  
***  
  
It actually only took three days.  
  
"Name's Kickban, Thunderbolt!" the gaudily dressed creature rambled as his feet lunged at me. "I channel extradimensional energy through my feet--and send whatever I kick out of this plane of reality--"  
  
I had no great interest in hearing the rest of Kickban's story, so I simply willed myself straight down, through the ground, flying at my normal cruising speed while I went out of phase with the matter around me, and shot up from beneath the idiot before he knew what hit him. The power all came from the strange, alien stone inside of me, but using that power to hit the clod below the belt was pure Karla Sofen. "Unnngh," he muttered, or something similar I couldn't spell, and fell over.  
  
Hawkeye had spent the past few weeks drilling it into us that we needed to cover each other's backs and help one another if we wanted to function as a team. It was instinctive of me by that point to immediately scan the rest of the battle for a Thunderbolt who needed my help.  
  
"Sorry, Serkitbraykre," Jolt was telling the cybernetic grotesquerie she was fighting, "but telling me what it is you do with your implants just makes it easier to know what to shut down!" True to her word, her bioelectricity was streaming out of her hands into what I assume were Serkitbraykre's weak spots. I reminded myself to tell Jolt she'd made the same basic mistake as the woman she was fighting--explaining how you plan to beat your enemy isn't much better than telling your enemy how to do it.  
  
Charcoal was having no trouble whatsoever with Hyoid. I was probably the only one there who knew that the misshapen wretch had named himself after a small bone at the base of the tongue. Regardless, Charcoal's ability to assume any property of carbon--including the durability of diamond--made him completely resistant to Hyoid's bizarre power, which apparently involved his body rapidly producing and firing hyoid bones out of a small opening in his neck.  
  
It was unfortunate Songbird wasn't there--someone needed to be asking whom these 'rooty-poos' were, to use her vernacular. I got my answer when I overheard one of them...Pronator...spewing diatribes at Atlas. "None shall defeat the Qonkystadorz, infidel!" I almost fell over laughing.  
  
When Atlas grew to 50 feet and stepped on him until he passed out, I did.  
  
"Moonstone?" Charcoal asked, carrying Hyoid's unconscious form over his back as he approached me. Jolt and Atlas seemed concerned as well, and that's when what hit them finally hit me. I was sitting on the ground giggling like a schoolgirl because we'd just beaten a bunch of losers in about five minutes. And while anyone else might have done the same thing, I was hardly anyone else. The worst part was, I didn't even know what had made me do it. I wondered what Archangel thought of the whole--  
  
Archangel.  
  
He was gone...I hadn't even noticed. We'd been on our way back from Denver, losing ourselves in the forests so no one could track us, when the Qonkystadorz ambushed us. They were the ones who'd planned this fight, so it was a safe bet Archangel's disappearance was not a good thing.  
  
Just as I was about to fly up and reconnoiter, another Qonkystador came into view. "Defeat!" he cried. "Even after I risked my own life to lure Death himself away, we are met with defeat! Shall this ever be the fate of those who seek his favor?"  
  
"Um...is there any reason he says 'his' like it's capitalized?" Atlas wondered aloud.  
  
"No matter! The Qonkystadorz sought to please him by culling the weak, and so shall %vurkyll see that his will be done!" Before any of us could react, %vurkyll sprayed some sort of gas over the entire area, enveloping himself, his teammates, and the Thunderbolts. I cringed a little, recalling my trauma with the Elements of Doom, but nothing happened. %vurkyll didn't live up to his name, as he emitted a substance that somehow only killed exactly who he gunning for. All five of the Qonkystadorz--himself included--began to spasm and deteriorate, and all of them seemed...resigned, somehow, to their fate. In seconds there was nothing left of any of them but ashes.  
  
"T-bolts!" Archangel has finally decided to let us know he was alive. I went after one of them, and I lost him right after he doubled back this way! Have you seen--what the...?"  
  
"They're all dead, Wings," Atlas explained. "Buncha spuds tryin' to impress some bigger spud, and they couldn't do it by gettin' us...so they got themselves instead."  
  
"They seemed to be familiar with you, Archangel," I went on. "Could they have been mutants?"  
  
He winced. "Could _you_ be a mutant, Moonstone? Anybody can stick some machines on a woman and mess with a man's DNA and make people into these...things. Where do you get off--"  
  
"All right, all right--I was out of line," I conceded. "They didn't have to be mutants to know you. But it's not every day someone calls one of my teammates 'death himself.' Does that mean anything to you, Warren?"  
  
I didn't need him to answer that. His face became an even paler shade of blue, and he took a step back like he readying himself to face an insurmountable challenge instead of my question. He glared in my general direction--not so much _at_ me as much as whatever he was thinking about--and finally gave his answer.   
  
"No. Can't say it does."  
  
I let him have his lie. There wasn't much point in letting on how much I knew about what he was hiding from us...or how I knew. We'd both keep our secrets a little longer, but it was inevitable that we'd have to reveal...  
  
Oh, darn. Our session's over. Another time, perhaps...  
  
***  
  
NEXT: Warren finally does something.   
(Wondering when we'd get to that, eh?) 


	4. Warren Does Something!

From their remote base in the Colorado Rockies, the THUNDERBOLTS fight to protect a world that they once made to hate and fear them! Led by the former Avenger HAWKEYE and now joined by the mutant acitivst ARCHANGEL, these outlaws have slowly earned credibility among some of their superhero peers...but not all of them, as you'll see in...  
  
NEXT BEST THING  
The fanfic recommended by one out of five dentists for healthier gums!  
by Jim Smith  
  
Chapter 4! "Warren Does Something"  
  
  
[Hawkeye/Moonstone foreplay made possible by #spam!, the IRC channel that tolerates--nay, encourages--careful planning of hot monkey love scenes. And extra special thanks to Brucha Meyers and her "healthy knowledge of anatomy." Er, you know what I mean...]  
  
***  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics, and no profit is being made from this unauthorized usage of them. Copyright of me, baby. Feedback encouraged, and paid for on occasion.  
  
This story will be archived on the Thunderbolts Fan Fiction Archive , but if you want it too, just email me at .  
  
Continuity: This story diverges from Thunderbolts canon after THUNDERBOLTS #29. It diverges from X-Men canon somewhere after UNCANNY X-MEN #368, but "X-Men canon" is a joke and nobody seems to care about that.  
  
***  
  
Warren Worthington was about one hundred thirty feet in air just outside of Burton Canyon, Colorado, trying to outpace his most arduous opponent in some time: A big disk.  
  
He was up there because of an x-factor in his genes that made him a mutant--specifically, a flying mutant who called himself Archangel and tried to use his powers for good. The disk--well, he hadn't quite figured out why _it_ was up there, but he was more concerned with avoiding whatever else it could do. All he was sure of was that it usually served as the shield of the USAgent, another man trying to help the public with a flashy name and an attention-getting costume.   
  
Archangel couldn't remember ever having met USAgent before--he vaguely recalled that the man in the black cowl had once overzealously substituted for Captain America, and was generally regarded as a hardass. These days the Agent was leading the Jury, a team of vigilantes hired by Cordco Industries to protect the corporation from the criminal element in Burton Canyon. As such, this wasn't Archangel's fight--or it hadn't been until he started hanging out with the wrong crowd.  
  
He'd come to Colorado tracking down an mysterious bit of business concerning his own corporation, Worthington Industries. That was how he met the Thunderbolts--a band of fugitives trying to prove themselves as superheroes to the world--and found himself teaming up with them to save San Francisco from the menace of a supervillain named Graviton. Just as he had begun to trust these criminals, a freak accident caused some of the Thunderbolts' equipment to explode. The sophisticated apparatus Songbird used to transform her voice into force fields was irreparably damaged, and Hawkeye was lucky to be alive after his trademark arrows blew up inside the quiver strapped to his back. With one member sidelined and their leader bedridden, the team found itself asking Archangel to help fill the void.*  
  
[* Just in case you missed the first three parts of the story...]  
  
And here he was, making sure Cordco's goons still had plenty of targets.  
  
"Pretty fancy flying, for a hubcap," Archangel mused aloud. "Too bad I'm a bona fide graduate of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, where I double-majored in 'Fighting Evil Mutants' and 'Outflying Stupid Contraptions Like You!'" There was something about making idle banter--even to a flying shield--that kept Warren's blood pumping a battle; something else he picked up in the school that once secretly trained the X-Men. As he spoke entirely too much to his mechanical audience, he swooped down and found the Thunderbolts still engaging the Jury...and USAgent leaving himself wide open to an aerial assault.  
  
"Gotta hand it to you, Agent!" he shouted. "Your shield keeps up with me, even on the sharpest turns! Only difference is, I've got enough brains to pull up out of a head-on collision!" He wouldn't have explained his strategy, but he'd been feeling out USAgent's shield long enough to know that his taunts wouldn't give his opponent time to react. As planned, Archangel got within an eyelash of Agent's face before swooping off, and the former Avenger and his weapon were reunited with an audible "whump."  
  
Archangel grinned from ear to ear as he flew up to Moonstone. "That should even up the odds, Leader Lady!" he beamed. "Anything else I can do...?"  
  
Moonstone grimaced. It was hard enough coordinating an offensive without trying to avoid Wysper's sonic attacks. "Just _shut up_, Archangel, and let me _think_! Charcoal, get Firearm off of Jolt's back! Jolt, with the Agent down, the Jury takes orders from Sentry! Show him what you did to that cyborg last week!" She finally found an opening, and fired one of her laser blasts at the hover-disks keep Wysper aloft. With that headache alleviated, she turned to her new teammate. "And Eager Beaver here will run some interference on the rest!"  
  
After giving Moonstone a nasty look, Archangel dived after Ramshot and Bomblast, dancing through the air and distracting their firepower from Atlas. "Not too shabby, Moonstone," the giant Thunderbolt told his field leader. "But what do you want me to do while they do all the fightin'?"  
  
"Follow me. Did they teach you how to hot-wire cars in the Maggia?"  
  
Jolt didn't like Moonstone very much, but she was used to taking her orders. Like the other members of the Jury, Sentry was covered from head to toe in heavy battle armor, and it wouldn't take much of the young girl's bioelectricity to damage his power source. Catching him off-guard would take a little effort, but she had the time. Firearm's flaming gauntlets had been rendered moot now that he was tangling with Charcoal, who could ignite his entire carboniferous body with no discomfort. USAgent was still reeling. Wysper seemed to be totally focused on Moonstone, to the point of following--and losing--her on foot instead of working with her teammates. Each member of the Jury were very single-minded, acquiring a single target and pursuing it regardless of how the rest of the team was doing. As Jolt buzzed around Sentry, keeping him off-balance, she wondered if Archangel wasn't much different...  
  
Her train of thought came to a halt when she and everyone else in the battle heard the roar of engines overhead. Atlas was in the Thunderbolts' new transport ship, the Champscraft*, racing away from the scene.  
  
[* "Borrowed" from the now-defunct Champions in THUNDERBOLTS #27]  
  
"What the--!" Charcoal gasped. "Where the heck is _he_ going?"  
  
Sentry began to regain the advantage against a confused Jolt. "Stay on the others, Jury! We'll track Atlas down later! That's how the Agent would play it..."  
  
"Not this time, Sentry." Rubbing his aching forehead, USAgent put his hand on Sentry's shoulder and turned the man's attention to something else in the sky.  
  
"Ta, ta, Thunderbolts!" Moonstone said as she waved to Archangel, Charcoal, and Jolt from the wheel of another vehicle. "I can't say it hasn't been fun, but Atlas and I haven't made it this far without knowing when to cut our losses!"  
  
"The Justifier!" Wysper was limping through the air on one out of two hover-disks. "That witch just ripped off our transport to cover their escape!"  
  
As the Jury regrouped, Archangel broke away from Ramshot and Bomblast to curse at the rapidly disappearing Moonstone. "Of all the no-good, low-down, dirty--I should have known all along!"  
  
"We've got these three outnumbered, sir!" Sentry protested. "Ramshot and Firearm could go after the other two, while we mop up--"  
  
USAgent sneered. "Brush up on your research, Sentry," he snapped. "Atlas and Moonstone are the only two of this bunch that worked for Zemo...these are just accomplices. Besides, the three million Cord pays you for them won't cover the costs of a stolen Justifier. Now let's go!" And so, with Wysper and USAgent in tow, the Jury complied, forced into their decision by their association with Edwin Cord and his personal agenda.  
  
"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Archangel shouted as the Jury departed. "What was I _thinking_, trusting those hoodlums! I suppose you two kids are gonna ditch me too, now that your team has fallen apart at the seams..."  
  
"_I_ sure wasn't planning on it," Charcoal replied defensively. "But he's got a point, Jolt. What're we gonna do _now_?"  
  
Jolt beamed with confidence, however. "Chill out, you guys. You two haven't been in the T-bolts near as long as me, and that's why you don't know--maybe Moonstone could pull a stunt like that, but Atlas..." Before she could explain any further, the Champscraft rumbled back at a lower altitude, as Atlas maneuvered the ship down to pick up his teammates. Archangel's jaw dropped.  
  
"That went better'n I expected, that's for sure," the big man said as the Thunderbolts piled into the craft. "Moonstone's gonna pull some stunts on 'em for a while to cover our escape, and put the Justifier on autopilot while she bails out to meet us." He glanced to the stunned ex-X-Man. "Did we fool ya there, Wings?"  
  
Archangel said nothing as his gaping mouth began to curl into a grin...  
  
***  
  
"Not too bad...not too bad at all!" Hawkeye commended as he struggled to his feet. "But you're sure nobody saw you and Atlas take a powder? The press will tear us two apart if they see that..."  
  
Moonstone shrugged as she answered. "It was a calculated risk, Hawkeye. We were a few miles out of town when the Jury ambushed us, so I doubt anyone who saw us really understood what we were doing. I've got a couple of ideas for some high-profile outings--we could use them to demonstrate the Thunderbolts are still a rock-solid unit...you know, you _really_ should be lying down..."  
  
Hawkeye smirked. "You wish. I can't just stay cooped up in that bed lettin' my back heal up while you guys are running around. The Jury ambushed you like those 'Qonkystardorz' guys, huh? You guys do okay without me, but there just ain't no one to replace me when it comes to sniffin' out sneak attacks..."  
  
"Don't let it get to your head, Avenger. Archangel has just as much experience as you do from his time in the X-Men, the Champions, the Defenders, X-Factor..."  
  
"X-Whatsit?"  
  
"Never mind." Moonstone propped the wounded archer against her own lithe frame, clutching his side a little more tightly than someone with her strength needed to. "I'm _telling_ you, your back isn't up to this strain yet. Though maybe we should get you into the gym for rehabilitation...your gut's a little softer than I would have expected..."  
  
"Oh, knock it off," Hawkeye shot back as she eased him onto the bed. "How'd you like to have a whole quiver fulla explosive arrows detonate all at once right behind you?" he asked, settling himself onto his stomach. "I can't see you layin' around topless for two weeks while some gizmo puts goo on your back..."  
  
"Maybe you're not trying hard enough...?"  
  
Hawkeye might have jumped right up to his feet if not for his injuries. Even so, Moonstone's joke made him turn his head so fast that it almost did a complete 360. As he looked at the sly grin on her face, he calmed his look of shock and reminded himself she'd just been kidding--nothing to be alarmed about. "Maybe you're enjoyin' it too much," he finally answered, trying to fall back into their routine banter.  
  
"I see," she chuckled. "So I suppose you don't want me to take over for 'the gizmo' and apply your ointment today?"  
  
"Um...I didn't say you couldn't..."  
  
***  
  
While Moonstone debriefed Hawkeye, the other Thunderbolts occupied themselves in the commons of their headquarters. The entire base had yet to be explored--not by the Thunderbolts, the Masters of Evil they took it from, or even August Masters*--but for all its spacious living quarters and numerous recreational facilities, the team often found itself in this one gathering room.  
  
[* A fanatic who used the complex back in DEFENDERS #106]  
  
Atlas was about to head back into Burton Canyon--this time as Erik Josten. He'd spent a lot of time at a sports bar since the Thunderbolts settled in this part of Colorado; the others didn't know he was trying to decide what to do about a former enemy who was working there as a bartender. Charcoal and Jolt were doing homework. More specifically, Jolt was finding yet another opportunity to complain about school, and Charcoal was trying to defend it without bringing himself to argue with her. Songbird was curled up in a chair, her impatient channel surfing hiding more subtle problems.  
  
If Archangel had been with the Thunderbolts for more than a week, he might have noticed all the dilemmas going on in this one room. As it was, though, he only had one concern on his mind as he walked into the commons. "So I was moving some of my aerobatics gear into the gym," he announced, holding up a familiar gold apparatus, "when I found _this_ lying around!"  
  
Songbird looked away from the television. "M-my sonic carapace? But who left it in the gym?"  
  
"Beats me," the mutant shrugged. "But what interested me was the fact that all the doodads that blew back in San Francisco are fixed! I didn't think any of you knew how to repair this thing--"  
  
Atlas walked up and looked over the carapace. "None of us do, Wings," he explained. "Techno built it for Melissa to use when we started the T-bolts. Since he's been gone, though, none of us coulda fixed it this good."  
  
"You think it could be the same thing that patched up your costume, Atlas?" Archangel suggested. "Huh. I was just kidding around when I blamed it on 'magic elves,' but this is a real sophisticated device." He handed it to Songbird. "Only way to see if it works, though..."  
  
"I don't get it," Songbird wondered as she put the carapace over her head and rested the device over her shoulders. "The Avengers told Hawkeye that a chain reaction made the vibranium in his arrows and my carapace explode! I know something in our headquarters has been fixing our stuff, but--" She stopped in mid-thought to concentrate on a few chords, and as before the carapace responded by transmuting her voice into a pink force field. "It works perfectly! But that's impossible unless--unless--"  
  
Jolt nodded. "I see what you mean, Melissa. Even 'elves' would need to replace the vibranium in your carapace to make it work. And after that crisis Hawkeye told us about**, the nearest supply would be in Wakanda!  
  
[** In CAPTAIN AMERICA #20-22, or you can get the Reader's Digest version in Part 2 of this li'l ol' fanfic...]  
  
"Who's to say elves can't just make their own vibranium?" Charcoal pointed out. It was a suggestion with serious implications, and it brought a silence among the Thunderbolts. "What? I'm _just saying_, how do we know what it can't do? Whatever it is..."  
  
Archangel scratched his head. "Something to bring up with Hawkeye, I guess. Anyway, at least Songbird flies again, right?"  
  
Songbird said nothing as she examined the carapace.  
  
"What happened to the rest of Melissa's gear, Warren?" Jolt pointed out. "There's a belt and a couple of arm-mounted components that she uses to make the wings..."  
  
Songbird had no comment.  
  
"Oh, right! I think I saw those in the gym, but I was so surprised I just grabbed the carapace and forgot about them." He spread his large, feathered wings and prepared to fly back to retrieve the accessories. "Hang on a second, Melissa--I'll have you back in the air in no time--"  
  
"NO!"  
  
The Thunderbolts turned to see Songbird racing out of the commons and into the nearest corridor to the living quarters. "Just--stay away from me!" she cried. "Leave me alone!"  
  
Archangel found his jaw dropping for the second time that day. "...The _hell_?" he exclaimed. "Someone want to explain that to me?"  
  
"She's...she's just like that, Wings." Atlas lowered his head a bit, troubled to see one of his closer friends run off in such pain. "Sometimes she just flips out and has to get away from everything. Usually I kinda know why, but...well...she'll be okay."  
  
"She'll be okay? Shouldn't somebody talk to her or something?"  
  
"What for?" Charcoal questioned. "She _said_ to leave her alone."  
  
"Charlie's right," Jolt agreed. "She only went to her room. She'll be fine...she just needs some time..."  
  
Warren Worthington watched his new teammates uncomfortably resume what they were doing before he walked in. It wasn't that they didn't care about Melissa...they were just too inexperience at caring to do anything about it. How much could he expect from an orphaned girl, a runaway boy, and a former mercenary? But then, these weren't the only Thunderbolts to go to...  
  
***  
  
Up to this point, Hawkeye had been receiving medical treatment for his injuries from the miraculously sophisticated technology of the Thunderbolts headquarters. Like something out of Doctor Doom's imagination, robotic modules would change his bandages and apply a seemingly panacean gel to his wounds. Right now, though, a module was sitting idly by his bed, while Moonstone scooped the balm from its open receptacle. "So," she purred, gently spreading it onto his back, "is my bedside manner better than our headquarters' automated medical equipment?"  
  
"Your hands are less chilly than that contraption, let me tell you," Hawkeye mumbled contentedly. There was something about her that put him at ease, never questioning her motives or decisions as he let himself enjoy her pampering. "Say, Moony...if you don't mind me askin'...I can't remember if I ever caught your full name. Karla...something...?"  
  
"Sofen," she finished. "I don't mind--it's never been a secret, except when I was trying to defraud someone. But those days are over. 'Moonstone' is fine, though."  
  
"Huh. I guess I think of myself as 'Hawkeye,' too. I had been kinda wonderin' if I should tell the rest of you my real name. It sounds like something I oughta do, but it really ain't all that important, really. The Avengers all call me 'Hawkeye,' and they've known me for years."  
  
"Even your wife?"  
  
"No," came the sudden answer. "How did _you_ know I was married?"  
  
"Was it a secret? I just remember picking it up through the grapevine somewhere. You and Mockingbird, right?" Moonstone found herself growing uneasy. "'Was married,'" she repeated. "Not anymore?"  
  
"She...died. Just before the Avengers closed shop on the West Coast."  
  
It bothered Moonstone. Not so much that Hawkeye's wife was dead, or that he still clearly wasn't over it, or that she'd touched a raw nerve by bringing it up. What bothered her most was that she'd made such a sloppy segue from his secret identity to what _she_ wanted to talk about, namely his marital status. Had Hawkeye been more alert, or more justifiably paranoid of her, he might have picked up on her blatant attempt to manipulate him into a romantic affair. Granted, she was undeniably attracted to the man, but that shouldn't have made her behave so impulsively. "I'm sorry," she told him, mostly to give herself time to find a way out of the subject. "That must've been while I was in prison...I hadn't considered why she hasn't been active lately."  
  
Hawkeye too felt awkward at that moment. He'd been developing this rapport with Moonstone for weeks--she'd make a joking sexual advance, and he'd just as humorously reject it. And that was all it was, wasn't it? Regardless, Bobbi Morse Barton had been dead for some time, and he had coped with it enough that he felt confident in deciding that he would rather enjoy a beautifiul woman's flirtations than mope about being a widower. He shrugged his shoulders and quickly searched for a way to segue back into their customary dialogue. "Ahh, it's no big deal. You deserve to know if you're makin' hanky-panky with a married man..."  
  
She smiled, and slowly used her powers of flight to lift her body silently and gently over his, until she was undeniably straddling the small of his back. Once it become obvious to even Hawkeye where she had moved, she replied confidently. "It wasn't the hanky-panky I was worried about--"  
  
Suddenly Archangel burst through the door to Hawkeye's quarters. "Hate to interrupt, folks," he began, "but I think you two are qualified to deal with this situ--what's going on?"  
  
Hakweye was rolling over and sitting up so fast that he aggravated his back--and sent Moonstone flying over the side of his bed before she had a chance to use her powers to stop him. The subdued sound of her supple posterior hitting the smooth metal floor made him jerk around yet again, only to stop halfway due to considerable pain. "Guhhh!" he groaned under his breath. "What _is_ it, Archang--uh, what's up?"  
  
"It's Songbird," Warren Worthington explained, after a slight and bewildered pause. "I was telling her that her carapace has been repaired somehow, and she threw a fit and ran off to her room."  
  
"That's to be--" Moonstone sat up from behind the bed, ran a hand through her hair to compose herself, and reiterated. "That's to be expected. Songbird's been like that for a long time. It hasn't affected her performance as a Thunderbolt yet."  
  
The mutant shot her a look. "Am I the only one whose _not_ concerned with her performance as a Thunderbolt? She's riled up about _something_, and--"  
  
"She's _always_ riled up, Warren," Hawkeye interrupted. "That's just her being herself. She'll work it out on her own, and she'll be fine. If she ran off to start an incident, I'd be worried, but..."  
  
"Oh, and _then_ it matters, Hawkeye? The Thunderbolts only matter until they create a PR disaster you can't spin-doctor your way out of? I thought the X-Men had problems sometimes, but there's a lot you can learn from them, let me tell you!"  
  
As he began to storm off, he turned and snapped, "For starters, they don't try to hide personal relationships as if they were Nixon tapes! I don't disapprove, and I wouldn't have even suspected if you hadn't jumped up like I was your father! It wouldn't kill you to trust the rest of the team once in a while..." And with that, he was gone.  
  
"What...what the hell was _that_?" Hawkeye stormed. "Where does that blue-blooded Tweety Bird get off tellin' _me_ how to handle this team? And what makes him think there's anything goin' on with you and me? I should--"  
  
Moonstone pulled herself back onto the bed next to Hawkeye. "Oh, come on--we both obviously had more on our mind than an innocent massage, or we wouldn't have been so startled when he walked in."  
  
"Do _what_?" Hawkeye glared at her. "That tears it, Moonstone--it's put-up-or-shut-up time. All this flirtin' around between you and me was fun for a while, but I want to know what the score is with you, and I want it right now."  
  
She just threw her head back and laughed. "You may be as dense as a brick, but you're the sexiest brick I've ever seen." Taking care to go easy on his back, she grabbed the archer and kissed him passionately, rolling him onto her so her weight wouldn't be on top of his wounds.  
  
If this didn't answer his question, she thought, at least she'd have some fun finding a more obvious way to do it...  
  
***  
  
NEXT: Welllllll, well it's the big show...and it's really, really big... 


	5. Business is Fixin' to Pick Up!

She thought her life of crime was over, but when her recently reformed cohorts THE GRAPPLERS drifted apart, Melissa Gold needed something to belong to. Little did she know she would end up battling Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Baron Zemo's MASTERS OF EVIL! Now she and other ex-Masters have banded together in the THUNDERBOLTS to repay their debt to society--whether society likes it or not! Team player and loner all in one, she is SONGBIRD--never straying from her flock, yet ever singing solo in her heart...  
  
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and an "x-factor" in his genetic makeup, Warren K. Worthington III had everything handed to him in life, including two large, feathered wings growing out of his back. Realizing he was a mutant, he set forth to use his gifts to help those who would come to scorn him for being different! Since then his life has centered around the uncanny X-MEN, the band of mutants who have mentored him, befriended him, fought him, lost and redeemed him, and even loved him. Once known as the Angel, he has risen in stature and carries the scars of his moral victories as the avenging ARCHANGEL...  
  
  
NEXT BEST THING  
The fanfic that pulls crazy crap like this installment!  
by Jim Smith  
  
Chapter 5! "Business is Fixin' to Pick Up!"  
  
***  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics, and no profit is being made from this unauthorized usage of them. Copyright of me, baby. Feedback encouraged, and paid for on occasion.  
  
This story will be archived on the Thunderbolts Fan Fiction Archive , but if you want it too, just email me at . By the way--I revised the first couple of chapters of this after I posted them, so if you want the final drafts, ask for 'em.  
  
Continuity: This story diverges from Thunderbolts canon after THUNDERBOLTS #29. It diverges from X-Men canon somewhere after UNCANNY X-MEN #368. Or so I hear. Most popular comics in the friggin' continent, and I can't find one schlub who can tell me what's been going on in them for the last year.  
  
***  
  
"Kansas City, Missouri! Please welcome, at nearly eight feet and over _five hundred_ pounds, the largest athlete in the world, Big!...Mick!...Finn!"  
  
The crowd in the Kemper Arena erupted, as a catchy entrance theme blared over the PA system to herald the arrival of "Big Mick" Finn. The hype about Finn was that he was an Irish goliath; the truth was that his name was Doug Templeton and even his thick black hair didn't quite reach the seven-foot-six mark on the measuring tape. None of these details had stopped the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation from successfully promoting him with a completely implausible gimmick. The fans in Kansas City knew better, but didn't care; Big Mick made the Hulk and the Thing look like midgets, and if pretending he was Irish meant he'd give you his autograph, so be it.  
  
"CA-BER-TOSS! CA-BER-TOSS!" The familiar chant that roared from the audience referred to the "Irish" giant's finishing maneuver which--in the grand wrestling tradition of slight inaccuracy--was named after a Scottish sport. Once he and his manager, the Lovely Delylah, had entered the ring, Big Mick answered the fans by miming the act of hurling a man across the ring like a tree trunk. The crowd popped with overwhelming approval, and Finn got down to the business of cutting an interview with commentator "Angry" Steve Zangre.  
  
"All right!" Zangre began. "Big Mick, we're only a few weeks away from INFERNO--live on pay-per-view--and you've got the chance of a lifetime: A shot at the UCWF championship!"  
  
His reply bellowed from massive lungs that could carry his voice throughout the Kemper Arena, even without a microphone. "That's right, Steve...when I came to UCWF, it was for one reason, and _one reason only_! And that...was to become...the heavyweight...champion...of the WORLD!" Like Pavlov's dog, the fans' reactions built up right along with Finn's emphasis. "Delylah and me, we've been through thick and thin together, throwing guys left and right, and there's only one guy left, and that's _you_, Styx."  
  
"Yes, on that subject--Delylah, your thoughts on managing this mountain of a man all the way to becoming the _number one contender_ to the world title..."  
  
Delylah moved up to speak into the microphone, and upon becoming the center of attention got her own share of cheers. She was easily one of the more beautiful female personalities in UCWF, but beyond that, she had a dignified, calm sensibility about her that made even the rowdiest mark in the audience refrain from catcalls or lewd chants. She smiled and simply said, "I'm just thrilled, Steve. I've always known Mickey had the talent to get here, and it's exciting to be with him for this moment." Delylah was a pro, and she knew she didn't need to say much; the story was towering above her.  
  
Turning back to Finn, Zangre continued. "It certainly is an historic milestone for your career, sir, but getting back to the added complication. The man you'll be facing will indeed be Styx, and that means you have the Coven to contend with as well!"  
  
"You think I'm worried about the Coven, Steve? You think I'm worried about a bunch of _jabronis_--guys who'd still be losing in the opening match in some bingo hall if they hadn't ganged up and started working for Styx? The truth is, they'd better be worried about _me_, because when I _take_ that UCWF _belt_ from that lanky-ass Vincent Price _wannabe_, I _may_ just decide I haven't had my fill, and give the whole lot of them a good... old-fashioned... CAAAAAAABER TOOOOOSS! ARRRRRRRRRGGHHHH!!!!"  
  
With that final thought, Big Mick's music was cued up again, signaling his egress. The color commentator began shilling the next segment, featuring a match between two of UCWF's vast array of female competitors. Where most promotions had downplayed their ladies' divisions, UCWF founder Ed Garner had relished the challenge of making his show a truly "equal-opportunity ass-kicking," and had built a major success over the years on a foundation of talented, eye-catching, and occasionally notorious women.  
  
One of them was sitting inside of a mountain in Colorado watching the show.  
  
***  
  
They were selfish, Warren Worthington reasoned. The Thunderbolts, for all their good qualities that he'd discovered since he'd gotten to know them, were basically looking out for themselves. All of them had ulterior motives in being superheroes; even Hawkeye, a respected ex-Avenger, had a personal stake in convincing the public to accept a team that had once very nearly conquered the world. And although the Thunderbolts, by and large, _wanted_ to do what was right, they were still jaded by their criminal pasts and instinctively sought whatever was in it for them.  
  
That had to be, he decided, why Atlas, Jolt, Charcoal, Moonstone, and Hawkeye had all balked at the notion that they should try to talk to Songbird about whatever was bothering her. They all respected her as a teammate--some of them might even have been close friends with her--but deep down, the whole lot of them was inexperienced with actually helping one another out with a personal crisis. If Songbird had been captured by the Jury or the Imperial Forces, they'd know exactly what to do. But right now she was distraught and bottling up her angst, and only one Thunderbolt had been in the X-Men long enough to know what to do about that.  
  
The question that went through his mind, on his way to Songbird's quarters, was what his role would be on this team. It seemed all the Thunderbolts had been pulled together by their mutual use of superheroics to achieve their own ends. Now he was on the team, so what were _his_ ends? To win back the public's trust and charity, like Moonstone? He was a mutant and heir to a family fortune; he'd never had trust and needed no charity. To have a cause to be loyal to, like Atlas? If that were it, he'd have reformed the Champions, the Defenders, or X-Factor. To create a surrogate family, like Jolt? He had one with Cyclops, Phoenix, and the rest of the founding members of the X-Men--there was nothing to stop him from staying with them instead of inside of this mountain with the T-bolts. Certainly he wasn't running from an even worse background, like Charcoal from the Imperial Forces. And whatever it was Hawkeye was trying to prove to Captain America and Iron Man by reforming these fugitives, Archangel wasn't out to show the same thing to his own mentor, Professor Charles Xavier. What _was_ he doing here?  
  
For the moment, he was trying to help a new friend, and opening the door to her room. "Songbird?" he asked, reassuringly.  
  
Melissa Gold was huddled up against the pillows at the head of her bed, flipping channels on a monitor that transmitted TV signals via the T-bolts' jerry-rigged satellite dish. The look on her face when she turned to Archangel was angry and spiteful, and implied she wanted him to leave. But she didn't tell him to. "What do you want?"  
  
To help, to find out what's wrong, to get her back in the sky with the rest of her teammates. But Warren figured that if Songbird really wanted to deal with this, she wouldn't have ran away when he presented her with her sonic carapace. "I just...wanted to hang out," he answered. "If that's okay."  
  
"I...sure, why not?" she shrugged, and pointed to the opposite end of the bed. "Make yourself comfy. Just be quiet when I tell you to."  
  
He complied, letting his large, mutant wings hang off the edge of the mattress as he sat down. "Got it. What are we watching?"  
  
She stopped channel-surfing just in time to catch the show returning from a commercial break. "Wrestling."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"If you don't like it, there's the door..."  
  
He stammered, trying to keep his small foothold on this newfound connection to her. "Hey, no--I just don't follow wrestling, is all. It's fine. A friend of mine used to perform, a long time ago..."  
  
"Who?" she asked, somewhat intrigued by the idea. The enthusiasm died as she decided she already knew. "The Thing? Yeah, I guess he's everybody's buddy..."  
  
"No, no--I don't know Ben Grimm much besides the superhero stuff," he shrugged. The gruff and monstrous cornerstone of the Fantastic Four was a good ally, but hardly the friend he had meant. "I was talking about another guy. Hank McCoy. Wrestled as 'The Beast' a few times. You probably wouldn't remember him..."*  
  
[* You would've if you'd read the dynamic X-MEN (vol. 1) #8!]  
  
"Probably before my time," she confirmed. "I didn't really pay attention to any of it until I started competing..."  
  
"You? A wrestler?"  
  
She smiled a bit. "I met someone in prison who got me connections. I wasn't some big mark who always dreamed of being a wrestler, but I had nowhere else to go, so I made it my dream pretty damn quick."  
  
Warren was now fascinated. "Were you any good?"  
  
"The first thing I found out about the business is nothing's simple in wrestling, including whether you're any good. I was in a stable--" she stopped, realizing Warren didn't know the jargon "--a group with my friend and a couple of others, called 'The Grapplers.' I guess if we'd been over with the crowd they would have had us each go solo. That's what they do with the Horsemen--"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Melissa looked at Archangel as he went as pale as his blue skin could. "Uh...the Four Horsemen? It's another stable...in some fed you wouldn't know." She saw how visibly he relaxed, as if the mere mention of the word had set him off. Weird. She'd encountered Ric Flair in her career, and she was pretty sure she'd know if she was talking to the Angel of Death or something.  
  
"Uh...where was I?" she continued. "We were sick of just getting by in a man's world, really, so the Grapplers took a job sabotaging some super-secret facility in New York called Project: Pegasus**. By the time we got out of prison for that, there wasn't anywhere else to go but back to wrestling. By then the Orange Goblin had about killed the whole business."  
  
[** Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States; a government research operation raided by Roxxon Oil in the classic MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #53-58]  
  
Warren furrowed his brow in confusion. "You mean the Thing?"  
  
"Yeah, him," she said with some contempt. "UCWF was already starting up and promising super-types in their roster when Grimm came looking for a job. He put the whole fed on the map, and nobody wanted to say no to a guy who'd already decided he didn't want anything to do with the Fantastic Four.*** So when he refused to 'work'--uh, to put on a show and agree to the pre-arranged finish--the whole promotion had to become some 'shootfight' competition because poor little Benjy wouldn't let wrestling be fixed like it's supposed to be. One way or another, I think that killed my career. Baron Zemo's Masters of Evil were there when the Grapplers fell apart, and...yadda yadda yadda...I'm talking to you."  
  
[*** After a falling out with the team in FANTASTIC FOUR (vol. 1) #277 and THE THING #23]  
  
The mutant nodded. "So, what name did you use?"  
  
"My...mother's." Warren noticed the young woman stammer noticeably. He hadn't thought about the Thunderbolts having families; Songbird probably hadn't seen her mother in years. "I was 'Screaming Mimi' Schwartz--my nickname inspired them to give me a bionic larynx before we went into Pegasus. Yeah, I had my hair bleached white and wore a green tutu, some face paint to cover my scars..."  
  
"But...you don't have any scars," Warren interrupted. "In fact, you look--"  
  
Melissa lightly kicked him in the side, cutting him off and directing his attention to the monitor. "Whoa! Quiet, Wings--this looks important..."  
  
***  
  
"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, and in case you missed what happened before the break...well, I'm just speechless, Liz."  
  
"The Grand Lizard" Danny Zucker, Steve Zangre's broadcast partner, portrayed himself as a world-class jerk on "UCWF Monday Maelstrom." The color commentator, when in character, was never at a loss for words. "Then shut the hell up and let a _real_ man do the talking, Zangre! Styx has sent the Coven to Big Mick Finn's locker room, and they've clearly given her a chance to ditch that idiot and manage the world champion..."  
  
"Now cut that out!" Zangre snapped. "They've _abducted_ Delylah, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist's granddaddy to figure out why! Styx _knows_ he can't beat Big Mick in the ring at Inferno, so he's playing mind games..."  
  
"And there's no way Mick Finn can beat Styx at mindgames, Zangre," Zucker shot back, completely ignoring the fact that this statement contradicted his previous one. Color commentators were probably required by law to make huge leaps of logic, just as play-by-play announcers seemed incapable of pointing it out with any competence. "Come Inferno, that big moron is going to go berserk at the title match, and get himself disqualified! Styx is a genius!"  
  
"He's a damn dirty son of a bitch, is what he is, and I hope my mama didn't hear me say that back home, but it's true! I'm told the Coven has holed up in the boiler room, and we may be able to get a look at it..."  
  
"See, Zangre, there's Delylah, nice and safe down there, nothing for Mick Finn to worry about--"  
  
"The hell there isn't, Lizard! You can plainly see Styx's huge bastard of a brother, Grendel, is standing right there next to her! She might as well be held at gunpoint..."  
  
"Well," Zucker pouted, "what's a camera doing in the boiler room, anyhow!?"  
  
"I'm not sure, Liz...I think one of our cameramen was trailing the Coven into the boiler room, and he may have left it there--yes, I'm being told the rest of the Coven is chasing our cameraman out of there, that explains it..."  
  
"Who's telling you this stuff? Nobody tells me anything in _my_ headset..."  
  
Zangre changed the subject and prepared to segue to the next match. "We will do our best to keep you folks at home updated...hopefully Big Mick and security can get down there and help Delylah out of there..." The play-by-play man was like a circus ringmaster, diverting the TV viewers' attention from one subplot to the next. He had to convey the importance of Delylah being abducted and the sheer terror fans were supposed to feel for her, but then he had to move on to the next segment of the program as if it was no big deal. "I...I really don't know what else to do but go to commercial. When we come back, Styx will be in the ring shortly to defend his title against Jonathan Chance..."  
  
***  
  
Songbird felt ready to jump off of her bed when the commercial break finally started. Instead she shot her hand onto the nightstand to grab her remote and began channel surfing frantically, trying to quietly send Warren the message that he could continue with his train of thought. She surprised herself in doing that--it seemed more in line with Moonstone to try to manipulate the man instead of talking to him--and she couldn't help it. She liked having him here, listening to her, hanging on her every word like it was all that mattered to him.   
  
After several agonizing seconds, she decided she was indeed better off being direct. "So...what were you saying?" she asked. She knew, of course--or at least, she had a pretty good idea. He was about to say she looked beautiful. It startled her to realize that, and she'd played it cool by trying to seem more interested in the Big Mick/Coven angle, but she couldn't resist any longer. She had to hear him say it.  
  
"I..." Warren himself was on the verge of panic. He couldn't believe he'd almost said that. Wasn't it enough to just point out she didn't have any scars on her face? Certainly she also had large, beckoning green eyes and soft, quivering lips, suggesting an innocence that was offset by a tensed brow and a thin little nose that seemed used to being wrinkled in disgust. She didn't need him to tell her she was beautiful. "I was just saying I don't see any scars on your face."  
  
"Oh." Melissa felt her heart sink, and she scolded herself for even thinking about it. A man was just trying to be a friend and she was all but tearing her clothes off for him. She'd practically expected Archangel to save her life back in San Francisco, thinking of how she'd repay him. Now this. She was such a slut, she thought, such a...a...  
  
"I had my face lifted," she finally answered, with a slight waver in her voice, "I think Techno called it a 'bio-plasmic disguise.' Techno was the one who made all the gizmos we used to hide our identities from the public when we posed as superheroes.*"  
  
[* As seen in THUNDERBOLTS #1-10 and the THUNDERBOLTS '97 annual.]  
  
"I remember him, "Warren mentioned. "Wiry guy with scruffy hair? Whatever happened to him?"  
  
"He just wasn't interested in turning on Baron Zemo like the rest of us. He...his neck was broken when we were fighting the Elements of Doom, and we thought he was killed, but...this is complicated, but..."  
  
"It was really a clone that died?"  
  
"No--"  
  
"He had a shapeshifter impersonating him when it happened?"  
  
"Uh, no, he--"  
  
"Discovered he had a freak genetic mutation that made him immortal?"  
  
"What? No! It--"  
  
"He'd been selected as the emotional template of a cosmic entity that left him in a cocoon somewhere?" Warren was by now grinning slightly.  
  
"No, now shut up!" Melissa smiled and threw a pillow at him. "He had a failsafe in his equipment that downloaded his consciousness and he made it into a robotic body!**"  
  
[** In the kick-ass THUNDERBOLTS #8.]  
  
Warren shrugged. "Oh. Is that all? I might like being a Thunderbolt..."  
  
"Do they die and come back that much in the X-Men?" she asked.  
  
"Probably no more than anyone else in such weird situations," he considered, "but just enough that it's become kind of a running gag with us. It stops being funny when it happens to you, actually."  
  
"Uhhhh, right."  
  
"Well, all that happened was that I was supposed to be on a plane that exploded, and everyone just _thought_ I was dead.*** I've had closer scrapes with the Defenders. But no, no, we have to make this big deal about how mutants have some 'pearly revolving door' in heaven. To tell the truth, I've been thinking we should get over ourselves, you know?"  
  
[*** In the slightly less kick-ass X-FACTOR #15.]  
  
Songbird stared at him blankly. "Uh...soooo...wonder what wrestling is up to right now..."  
  
***  
  
"The following contest, scheduled for one fall, is the _main event_ of the evening, and is for the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship! Introducing first, the challenger, from Chicago, Illinois, weighing in at 236 pounds...Jonathannnnn _Chance_!  
  
Chance had no fancy music, no pyrotechnics, no frilly gimmicks. All he had to his credit was a pair of tights and some underappreciated wrestling skill. The scruffy young man paced intently around the ring, oblivious to the dead silence of the fans he was supposed to elicit cheers from. In the early days of UCWF, when the competition was legitimate and the athletes were required to possess ungodly strength, Chance wouldn't have made it to a world title shot--as it was, nobody expected his character to make it through the night.  
  
The lights dimmed. A fog began to roll out of the main entranceway to the locker room, and covered the ramp leading out to the ring. The effect was oddly effective for a wrestling promotion, creating a morbid river for Chance's opponent to "float" upon. His skin was pale, his leather and spandex attire was black, his eyes were an inhuman hue of red. He stared straight at Jonathan Chance as he glided across the mist, dragging his title belt as if he wished it were Chance's spine. "His opponent...representing the Coven, from parts _unknown_, weighing in at 312 pounds...the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Champion..._Styx_!"  
  
Chance wasted no time, immediately leaping to the top turnbuckle and leaping into the air, crashing into the champion the second he'd entered the ring. It staggered the larger man, but as Chance got back to his feet, he looked up to see Styx--always in character--barely "selling" the pain such an aerial maneuver would cause a wrestler who wasn't touted as an undead satanic mystic.   
  
Styx grinned maliciously at the challenger, more a warm-up before the pay-per-view than a serious contender to the title. The real threat, of course, was Mick Finn, whom his followers would surely keep detained. The man in the black costume was more concerned with putting his kids through college, but as Styx, he was confident this night would be all too easy.  
  
***  
  
"You look like you recognize him," Melissa told Warren. "His real name is Mortimer Roth..."  
  
"No..." Warren answered, somewhat fascinated with the overall impact of Styx's grand entrance. "No, he doesn't remind me of anyone...nobody I wouldn't like to forget, anyway..." He abruptly changed the subject. "So, I take it Techno built your sonic carapace?"  
  
She was beginning to suspect the real reason he'd come here. "Uh...yeah. My larynx was shot when I was recruited for this team, and the best he could do was modify what was left of the bionics into an adapter. The carapace receives sonic input from this node on my throat--" she gestured to the smooth red plate "--and makes the force fields and stuff according to what I 'sing' for it to do."  
  
"Sounds complicated."  
  
She nodded. "It was. I learned a _lot_ about controlling the sound of my voice as Screaming Mimi, though. If I know what I want the sonic field to look like, I can generally work out the frequencies to shape it how I want. The wings are easiest, because I was practicing them as soon as Techno suggested the name 'Songbird.' Everyone but me thought a songbird should fly."  
  
Warren smiled. "Must have been confusing. I remember when the x-factor in my genes kicked in, and my wings began to emerge. When they got big enough that I could fly with them, it was exhilarating, but it was a while before I stopped thinking 'holy crap, I have friggin' _wings_ on my _back_ and I'm _flying_!'"  
  
"Something like that. I had a good teacher, though."  
  
"Who, Moonstone?"  
  
"Huh? Oh no, she just defies gravity or something--she couldn't help me learn to handle the wings. Abe--MACH-1--had been wearing flying suits of armor for years, so he knew what to show me."  
  
And I fell in love with him, she thought. It didn't come out.  
  
"Oh, I forgot about that one," he replied.  
  
She shrugged. "You never met him, I guess. He turned himself over to the authorities when Hawkeye joined the team. It was his way of proving we want to redeem ourselves, but on our own terms."  
  
And it was his way of giving everything up for me, she thought more forcibly. Again, she couldn't bring herself to say it.  
  
***  
  
"Folks, this title match has gone completely berserk! Styx must've disqualified himself fifty-seven different ways by now, to keep Jonathan Chance from upsetting him to win the gold!"  
  
"You know it, Zangre! The title can't change hands on a disqualification! I told you Styx was a genius!"  
  
"I can't deny Styx has saved his own ass, but there's no need for this level of brutality--my god! My god! Lizard, it's Mick Finn! Mick Finn is here!"  
  
"Oh no, what's that idiot doing out here?"  
  
"_Big_ Mick Finn must've decided to find out where Delylah is by going straight to the source--BOOM! Knife-edge chops from a five-hundred-pounder are sure to make the demented champion talk!"  
  
"Here comes the Coven, though, Zangre! What the--oh no!"  
  
"Jonathan Chance! The headstrong rookie is running interference so Mick can have Styx to himself! After that vicious assault, Chance is giving all he's got, five-on-one, to help his fellow man!"  
  
"This is terrible, Zangre! This is _none_ of Jonathan Chance's business!"  
  
"Styx is being broken in half across Big Mick's mighty shoulders...I think he's talking! Telling Mick where to find his closest friend, Delylah! Oh...oh my--Mick's gotten what he needed, and it looks like he's giving Styx a rain check until Inferno..."  
  
"No, no, NOOO!"  
  
"CABER TOSS! Son of a..._bitch_! Three hundred pounds of the world champion just got flipped head-over-heels and landed _head first_ on the mat! Styx may need to be stretchered outta here, but the real story is heading out into the crowd, as Big Mick Finn heads for the boiler room!  
  
"Aw, this is _terrible_, Zangre..."  
  
***  
  
The soap opera on the TV was becoming more distracting, but Warren wouldn't let it divert his attention from helping his friend. "Hey, look...Melissa? I understand what it must've been like, when your carapace blew out on you in mid-air. There were times when my wings acted up on me, or caused trouble for me just by being there. I guess sometimes I wished I could take them off and never look back--for a while there I..."  
  
He stopped short of telling the story. How could he tell her that a band of mercenaries, the "Marauders," wounded him so severely that his wings had to be amputated? The point was valid--Warren had occasionally wished he could be rid of his cumbersome mutation until he got what he wanted--but it made no sense now. His wings were right where they'd always been, and he couldn't explain _that_ to Melissa without telling her about...   
  
"...Well, it's not important. What I'm saying is, life always ends up showing me I'm better off for being able to soar through the sky on my own power. I'd--I'd hate to see someone choose to give that up...especially you."  
  
Melissa's expression seemed almost frightened. She wanted to run, to scream, to get away from the powerful emotions brought on by a generous offer to help with a paralyzing fear. She'd fled from Abe when he first tried to show her such deep compassion. But this time...something was different...  
  
She reached over and threw her arms around him, sobbing in his embrace. "I--I'm sorry I blew up at you before, Warren," she sniffled. "It's just that...I'm afraid to go back up there..."  
  
He hugged her back and consoled her. "It's all right, I understand. Look, I know I'm not MACH-1, but if you want I can go out with you and get you flying again. If you fall, I'll be there to catch you, I swear."  
  
Songbird didn't have to think about it. "I'd...like that..."  
  
***  
  
"Folks, we apologize, this is _live_ television, we weren't prepared to get a camera to follow Mick to the boiler room, but...there! Mick is in the boiler room! Mick is in the boiler room!"  
  
"Ahhh! Grendel, do something!"  
  
"Grendel is 350 pounds of come-getcha-some, and I don't think he'll let Big Mick have Delylah without a fight--what the..."  
  
"Zangre, is Delylah trying to _separate_ them?"  
  
"I...I think you're right, Liz! Mick and Grendel are staring holes in one another, but it's almost as if they're both trying to protect Delylah...the Coven! They must've followed Mick to the boiler room! And they're beating the holy _hell_ out of the number one contender, with Inferno just weeks away!"  
  
"Look...look at Grendel! He's keeping his own guys away from Delylah! What is up with that!?"  
  
"This story is heating up, but we're out of time!"  
  
***  
  
NEXT: Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove... 


End file.
